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.
When we had tone controls, 'warm' and 'bright' were easily defined by what you did with the bass and treble knobs.
That made me laugh. Possibly true, but unprovable. As when I lived near the "second most photographed site" in Nova Scotia. |
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, please read my post to Raul above. I used examples of actual instruments that differ in ways that I describe using the term warm as a differential descriptor. I can think of another excellent example that you probably can listen to from your own record collection. Find a Baroque ensemble playing on period correct instruments and another ensemble playing the same music on modern instruments. String instruments using cat gut will invariably sound softer, I use the term warmer, than instruments using modern steel strings. Please note that warm or soft, louder or sharper these sounds are all real. Your inference of deviation from reality is misplaced within the context of what Raul and I were trying to convey to each other. He bases his judgement of what is correct in relationship to what he hears at live musical performance sitting at or near the front row. This is his frame of reference. Mine comes from sitting at a drum kit, which is quite different. BTW, musicians generally make lousy audiophiles. ;-) I still have a drum kit and a piano in my listening room in Florida to this day. |
