If Warmth Is a Distortion, Why Do So Many Audiophiles Still Defend It?

@r27y8u92,

"I have enjoyed the warm and smooth sound. Not any more. Whenever I go to music concert, I feel the sound from the concert somewaht harsher. But, the harsher sound is true to the music, and I like it better! Because it is simply more vivid! Some people whose ears are trained by the real concert sound do not much prefer the WARMTH. I am the one of them." 

Well said.  That is the truth. The conductor hears everything at the most vivid.  In the 1st row center, it is somewhat less vivid but still enjoyable.  Vividness is progressively lost further away.  Yes, the 7th row may have the best overall balance, but the vividness is markedly subdued.  In the 7th row, there is more uniformity between the musicians close to the edge of the stage and those in the back of the stage.  But everything is way less vivid in the 7th row, so I am less interested in balance when everything is mediocre by my standards.

sargonicuse, devinplombier,

Thanks for your info on the SPL apps.  Are there good ones for Android?  Or non phone apps now that Radio Shack is out of business?

@viber6 

The Android sound apps I tried were limited to 80 dB, making them essentially useless.

At first I was surprised by the 80 dB readings when my system was clearly playing well into the 100s. As an experiment, I placed the phone with the SPL app running into an empty oil drum and whacked the drum hard with a hammer... 80 dB.

I am not sure if the limitation is a function of Android or my Pixel phone, the information I found online was contradictory, but it appears to be intentional. There might be a way to defeat it but I lost interest.

I sat in front of a string quartet quite recently. It sounded warm.....

Scram back under the rock with the [warmth = distortion] gibberish.

Over time, a few things have stood out to me:

• Warmth is pleasant, but it’s still coloration.
Beautiful, yes — but not accuracy, not transparency, and not always the artist’s intention.

• Warm gear enhances some tracks but softens accuracy in others.
Especially vocals, piano, violin, guitar, and other acoustic instruments. Some people hear this, some don’t, and some just prefer it that way.

• Modern Class D deserves more respect than it gets.
Many older audiophiles dismiss it based on outdated assumptions. But the latest designs are already extremely neutral, fast, and precise. I’m not sure how much longer Class A/AB will remain relevant beyond nostalgia and brand loyalty.

• Price reflects real quality only up to a point.
Beyond that, it becomes about branding, house sound, and personal bias. Preference is fine — but preference isn’t the same as absolute fidelity.

But you didn’t acknowledge my other statement that a passive attenuator will be more transparent AND cooler than an active preamp in tonality.  

@viber6 Actually I did and I can add more: when you use a passive volume control, if there is a coupling capacitor at the output of the source, you might introduce a timing constant. That might not roll of bass at audio frequencies, but might introduce a phase shift which the ear interprets as a loss of impact. In so doing, that will tilt the perception to the highs, thus producing your ’thin’ sound. 

’Thin’ is a coloration and therefor is not neutral. 

The introduction of a control in this fashion can also result in a loss of transparency. It is actually possible for a thing to be too simple and this is an example. 

Odd question. Some people prefer the sound of distortion. That’s why so many people listen to vinyl. Why does that matter? 

FWIW Dept.:

I used to run an LP mastering operation. One thing I found out doing that is the LP itself is much lower distortion than most people realize. The distortion comes in during playback, not the mastering process. The typical LP cutter head might have 30dB of feedback wrapped around it and the mastering amplifiers, which have their own feedback as well. The result of all that feedback is very low distortion. Most of ’the distortion of the LP’ is really just poor tonearm setup, poor tonearm design, tracking angle errors, skating force errors and issues with the phono section.  

 Dave Belles in the early amps I used had only single ended RCA connectors.  He thought that balanced connections require double the amount of circuitry which would result in loss of detail.  

If he really thought that he was simply wrong. You don’t need double the circuitry for a balanced line setup. Our preamps have been fully balanced and differential since their inception in 1989. There isn’t twice the circuity. For example, in our phono stage there are only two gain stages, despite the phono section being able to work with LOMC and having passive EQ. Most single ended phono sections that might do that would have 3 gain stages unless an SUT is employed (which have their own complexities).