Dear @billstevenson : I can hear those differences ( minute ) using same tonearm but that " warm/coloration " in your Denon comes probably from its tonearm that it's not so well damped as the Technics magnesium build material.
R.
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’s nice to listen together, after a while we describe what we hear, and know what we agree on, mine/yours/his systems, various cartridges, ... To me, there is a difference between ’Presence’ (midrange slightly elevated) and ’Warm’ a characteristic rather than a frequency variation. My and many vintage speakers have Level Controls to adjust the speakers in whatever space they find themselves and for the users preferences. Mine are called ’Presence’ and ’Brilliance’. In a hard reverberant space, you might cut the highs to avoid too bright, shrill, brittle, edgy: find the right word. The presence has not been frequency boosted, but the listener is more relaxed and the sound is more enjoyable, the presence more apparent. I would not call that warm either, just tamed. I went for extended bass when younger, but I came to think that was not so important, and in fact, I think what I and other people like most about my speakers is related to ’not too much bass’. (they are 15" huge magnets, weigh 37 lbs each,16 ohm highly efficient, bass is not lacking, just not further extended). As I have said many times, Bass can be directional, i.e. Stereo Bass, always consider the overtones, and when there is less low room filling mono bass, and all the omni-directional reflections of that, everyone remarks on how the imaging of Jazz bass players and the sounds of bass decay are wonderful. Can less bass produce ’warmer’ bass? Not frequency emphasized, but a purposeful lack of extension, again, more apparent, not frequency emphasized. Certainly well executed extended low bass is amazing, but mostly large spaces, larger than mine. |
Raul, I agree with you. The Technics is definitely more neutral, clearly offers better definition. And yet the Denon is just lovely for casual listening. Of course my VPI HW-40 is better than the Technics, but only a little bit. When I was younger these things mattered more to me. I don't know how much of that to attribute to my ears and how much to maturity. There was a time when Rega's approach was not appealing to me. Not long ago I had occasion to "set up" a P8 for a guy using AnalogMagik. Actually all I did was verify that it did not need to be set up, it performed just fine right out of the box. Excellent without qualification. There is a lot to be said for that approach. I would really like to have a chance to compare a Rega Naia to my HW-40.
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Thanks for serving. I live in Silicon Valley and am disappointed that many don’t appreciate the military protection of our peace and freedom.
My SS is neutral, Audionet Humboldt. I’m a bucket list late to the table audiophile trying to sample various top audio presentations.
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