What I mean by Warm Sounding Speaker.


A prior thread, along with significant changes to my speakers here at home have had me thinking a great deal about what "warm sounding" is.  I've bee thinking about this a great deal, and wanted to put my own thoughts out there without derailing the other thread. 

It may help to put aside what I think is most definitely not warm sounding.  Briefly: 

  • Harmonic distortion or noise
  • Elevated treble
  • Uneven frequency response (in tight bands) 
  • Prominent bass bite. "Jump factor" 

The two qualities which I believe create a warm sounding speaker is: 

  • Smooth frequency response.  Not necessarily flat, but without small aberrations, but especially important in the midrange through bass areas.
  • A gently descending frequency response from around 100 Hz.  Close to the B&K Curve if you will.

So now let me get to some specifics.  Normally I find Magico VERY smooth, but  for me, slightly cool.  

I can name a number of mid to high end speakers with small rises and dips in small bands which I believe contributes greatly to their signature, and probably their success as well.  

I want to make it clear that warm is not flat, nor is cool flat either.  The frequency troubles I am talking about happen within an octave or two, they are areas where the speaker will sound like it has more detail than others exactly because of these little peaks and valleys of reproduction.  

To be a warm speaker is to be a very smooth performer, with no particular area more prominent.  For instaace, if I notice excess chest sounds, or resonances in the lower female voice, particularly plastic sounding reeds, which may sound more natural if my ear was on stage.  Also, not warm are systems that have one note bass.  A warm sounding speaker should have unique tones for each performance, not color each performance with it.  I know this sounds counter intuitive, but a warm speaker doesn't make Gwar sound warm, but rather it has the possibility of sounding warm when the source is warm.  

There.  Now that I have perturbed the waters of A'gon I can get a good night's sleep.  

 

erik_squires

I agree with the OP on this. That said. a "perfect" speaker would output simply what was fed to it, nothing more or less. I've said this before and drawn criticism for it. Audiophiles chase whatever distortion suits their ears.  

“Warm” is created by an elevated midbass and a dip in the presence range, combined with a gently sloped upper end rolloff. The bass boost acts as a sort of built in loudness compensation, as most home listeners play music below the equal loudness threshold. I prefer a flatter response but don’t object to the gentle rolloff above the midrange, as many classical recordings are too closely miked for my taste, and the tilt helps mitigate the effect. 

I like “natural” sounding sounding speakers so good recordings just sound “right” to me, which admittedly may sound warm or cool to someone else cause it’s a moving target based on personal tastes/hearing.  “Warm” or “cool” to me implies a coloration of some sort one way or the other.  That’s all I got. 

a warm speaker is:

  1. …a very smooth performer, with no particular area more prominent. 
  2. … should have unique tones for each performance, not color each performance with it
  3. …has the possibility of sounding warm when the source is warm.  

​​​​​​​@erik_squires  You have captured the essence of a warm, musical sounding speaker.   In a recent thread, I listed attributes of the quality of musicality, which a believe applies to the quality of warmth   I have included it herewith, listed in my order of importance, and annotated applicability to warmth.

  • Timbre (to me critical to both warmth and musicality) 
  • PRaT that is established by micro and macro dynamics, and transient response especially the leading and end edge, without ringing. (More important to musicality, but if leading edge or pace and rhythm is excessive, it can reduce natural warmth.  If trailing edge is excessive it can muddy the sound add to excessive warmth). 
  • Detail where most important is the ability to reproduce harmonic decay and hall (or studio engineered) ambient effects.  To me, this contributes to the quality of bloom and natural dimensionality.  I find this the area where there is the greatest difference in listening to a live acoustic performance in a good hall where there is a detailed, sweat tonal characteristic emanating from a point source and expanding and decaying into the venue as the concentric waves generated from dropping a pebble in a still pond. 
  • A natural, sweet, and liquid midrange.  (The ability to accurately reproduce harmonic decay and ambience is also critical to natural warmth)
  • Highs without harshness or sibilants. 

​​​​​​​In my discussion on musicality image density, which also applies to the quality of warmth.

 @fastfreight +1 Vivid Giya.  I have the G3.  

Interesting that you bring up warm with respect to a speaker. The term to me does not have the same implication as it would electronics. To me warm speakers are unnaturally bassy... probably rolled off... not a good thing, ever. 

But in the electronic realm. The advent of solid state most early electronics were lean, trebly... midrange poor. Then the CD was introduced. Then they figured out how to supply high current in amps and preamps... but still left the midrange lean. This was at least a 40-50 year problem. Now it is mainly a question of balance between details/slam and a balanced sound and warm is good as in midrange bloom.