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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. 

billstevenson
elliottbnewcombjr
7,776 posts
 

@pryso 

is this it?

 

from AI

"Bob Fulton, the late founder of Fulton Musical Industries, created a specific color-coded chart that assigned a different color to each instrument in a full orchestra to illustrate the sonic characteristics of his speakers. 

This chart was not widely published; it was reportedly seen by enthusiasts at Mission Bay Audio, a Fulton dealer in San Diego, during the late 1970s when Fulton speakers were popular among high-end audio reviewers like J. Gordon Holt. 

While the specific visual chart is no longer readily available online, the concept is referenced in vintage audio forums (such as Audio Asylum) as a method to visualize the frequency response and tonal balance of Fulton’s electrostatic and dynamic speaker systems."

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more on this page

https://www.flutopedia.com/sound_color.htm

 

dogberry
962 posts
 

When we had tone controls, 'warm' and 'bright' were easily defined by what you did with the bass and treble knobs.

No one agrees on which is the best loudspeaker.  But most everyone agrees the second best is the LS3/5a.

That made me laugh. Possibly true, but unprovable. As when I lived near the "second most photographed site" in Nova Scotia.

lewm
14,681 posts
 

More in line with raul, I think of warm as a coloration. We don’t want coloration but we use that word, because it is apt. Yet the undisciplined mind loves colors, mine included sometimes.

pryso
2,079 posts
 

Warm may be a coloration, as lewm suggests.  I generally associate warm with sounds produced by tubes, less sharp edged and slight 80-160 Hz boost.  SS based systems can sometimes sound brittle or unnaturally metallic to me.  I expect this could be distortion or variation form flat response - a coloration..

@elliottbnewcombjr, I’ve not seen that chart before and no that was not Fulton’s chart.  From your link that was furnished by Nexdrum in 2026, about four decades after I was aware of Fulton’s concept.  As I remember his chart there was a detailed color assignment to each common instrument as mentioned.  But your other AI information was interesting and matched my memory. 

I'm familiar with both drummers Bill mentioned but have not noticed the tonal differences he described.  I suspect that is a variation from individual perceptions.  And I admit I'm not a musician.

lewm
14,681 posts
 

It's a coloration by definition in that as soon as you use terms like warm, you are inferring that the sound quality deviates from reality.  Even though live music can occasionally be described as warm, because live music is all things at once, and then some when it comes to dynamics.

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