I think Paul nailed it. Audio sound descriptions are complicated, and basically involve it’s own slang without the benefit of a common known guideline of what the terms actually mean.
Given warm/musical vs cold/analytical at their extremes, I’d learn more towards warmth, but I suspect we’re all looking for a good balance that offers warmth and musicality AND true resolution with insights that offer ambient room and space information along with natural harmonic structure and overtones that take place above the fundamental range of most instruments. The trick is to gain that without just boosting the higher frequency crud in that range that often sounds harsh to us. (at least that’s my goal)
What does "Warm" mean?
In his post today Paul McGowan ([email protected]) had a pretty good post on the subject of warmth. Here is his definition: "The word usually points at a few related things. There's a slight rise in the lower midrange and upper bass — the region where male voices, cellos, lower piano notes, and the body of most instruments live. There's a softness at the very top, a rounding off of transient energy that feels easier on the ear over long sessions. And there's a sense of weight and body in the music, a presence that makes acoustic instruments feel three-dimensional rather than etched in air. When all three of those things show up together, listeners reach for "warm" because nothing else describes it as quickly."
Paul then goes on to discuss both the good and the bad of this set of characteristics. In general I associate warmth with harmonic distortion, but prefer it to the stridency or harshness that I associate with intermodular distortion. I think most people would agree. Since we all live with a certain amount of distortion, more in analog than in digital playback, I wonder what others think about warmth, or lack of same, and their tolerance or lack of same in their own listening preferences.
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It is very interesting that you are equating sound with color. The late Bob Fulton, famous creator of the Fulton J speaker, used to give a very entertaining lecture on the colors of sound as he heard them. Warm sound warm colors, cool sound cool colors sort of thing. I am not doing this justice unfortunately. @noromance has the right idea. Comparing my Technics SL1200 GAE (bright white, better detail) to my Denon DP-3000NE (softer focus, warmer) is what particularly prompted my interest in the subject. If I want to just kick back and relax and let the music envelop me, warmer, softer is what works best. This is a new discovery for me. Something about myself that I did not know before. |
I keep my terminology for warmth to mean the Sun on my Face or a log well caught alight on the Log Fire in the colder months. When it comes to end sound, there is Transparency, which deteriorates into Tonal Richness. Each to their own on the cut-off point for each, when detectable and having a discernible, perceivable presence. |
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