"Warm" sound

[CECAA850]

I have a plasma with a warm picture.

[Taz]

Warm sound, kinda like a soft spoken lover. Pleasing to listen to with no eveident sound of a Scrill voice. Something you can kick back and listen to for hours. Maybe with the lights off so you don't get distracted from the music.......................................Taz

[Fish]

Warm makes you smile, cold makes you cringe. I think most people that use the terms have a basic understanding of what is being conveyed .If one don't understand what the terms convey they probably don't believe they have a use in describing interpretation of sound. There is not a wrong or right in this context, IMO.

[Deang]

I don't understand the hostility towards the idea of using language to describe what we're hearing in our systems. You know, people from other forums visit this place, see the topics, read a handful of comments, and then conclude that this place is largely inhabited by people who are uninformed and inexperienced and probably aren't going to be able to help them. Now, how would I know this? Well, I run a business, so get a lot of phone calls and email -- and newsfash -- you'd be surprised at the number of people that own Klipsch products that either completely avoid this place or never bother posting because they don't want to deal with the one dimensional thinking that is beginning to dominate here.

Words are vehicles of thought. Trying to describe sound is like trying to describe the taste of food -- it's not easy, but it's the only tool we have. Now, if people are going to be ridiculed for attempting to describe what they are hearing, we've removed the primary reason for even having a forum in the first place.

There's nothing wrong with using the word "warm" or any other word to describe the sonic signature of a component, loudpeaker, or system. Some words are more helpful than others, some are of no use at all -- but I don't think we should be deriding or discouraging there use.

Attached is a picture showing the four most prominant type of frequency response curves. There is a fifth, I forgot to add it -- just flip the last one. Now, how should we go about about trying to describe the various presentations -- or is this something we just shouldn't bother with anymore?

[garyrc]

There's nothing wrong with using the word "warm" or any other word to describe the sonic signature of a component, loudpeaker, or system. Some words are more helpful than others, some are of no use at all -- but I don't think we should be deriding or discouraging there use.

Attached is a picture showing the four most prominant type of frequency response curves. There is a fifth, I forgot to add it -- just flip the last one. Now, how should we go about about trying to describe the various presentations -- or is this something we just shouldn't bother with anymore?

I agree in the case of "warm" -- and several other useful adjectives. IMO, a recording can be warm because the live performance was, or because either the recording process or the playback equipment introduces "friendly" (how's that word?) distortion, such as, but not limited to, the even order harmonic distortion mentioned above. In my earlier post I was trying to have a little fun with both my own past use of words like "silver" (as opposed to "golden"), neither of which I probably use today, and ultra-audiophile reviewers who use words like "stringy." One of the worst was when -- in about 1983 -- a magazine (TAS ???) described several CDs as having "mistracking" &/or "tracking distortion," using terminology borrowed from evaluations of phono cartridges.

Looking at the curves, the first (flat) one, might be described as "neutral" or "faithful," but we might not like playback equipment with that curve it if the recording is not "faithful." It seems to me that fewer and fewer recordings are. J. Gordon Holt, the founder of Stereophile, touched on that in his classic article "Down with Flat!" Holt's main objection, if memory serves, was that with flat response many sound systems &/or recordings would sound too bright. I think that the problem is more like "some bright reproduction exposes distortion." I have no objection to a very bright recording, if the artists choose to present it that way, if it is clean, clear, and relatively undistorted. I have found as many recordings that are bass deficient as are treble deficient. Holt elsewhere reported that when listening to high end sound systems professional musicians have difficulty recognizing anything familiar in the reproduction of their own instruments. This has gotten worse since Holt's day, IMO. Holt said that musicians were increasingly (according to his mail) choosing Klipschorns over speakers of the "high end," as a solution to that problem. This from an editor who had many reservations about Klipschorns. Because recordings are so variable, I want to be able to mess with the response curve, fitting it to the needs of the recording. Dear readers: if a golden ear audiophile near you has fainted while reading the Klipsch forum, call 911.

A mild version of the U shaped curve (the one not shown), is what I often end up with. I can't think of what to call it, other than "correct, with many recordings."

The curve sloping down toward the high end I might call "veiling." I know it is sometimes recommended with movies, and a few high end manufacturers sometimes use it to cover a multitude of sins in program material, so that a recording will never give offense, but I would use it as a last resort.

My biases may have been formed by playing in several orchestras (in the past), with the instruments very close up, and sitting in the front in concert halls when I could afford it.

Dean, I hope you eventually comment on the curves and share the way you would describe them.

[Dingman]

Actually, you can ask Google.

But, I didn't get a result from "warm sound".

Here is the result from "Audio"

http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Audio&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=

[Fish]

I confess I'm partial to the mild U or V shapes, just suits my ears better.

[derrickdj1]

A warm sound comes from a couple of hundred pound mono block amps in class A mode listening to some jazz by Praful, lol.

[Quiet_Hollow]

Attached is a picture showing the four most prominant type of frequency response curves. There is a fifth, I forgot to add it -- just flip the last one. Now, how should we go about about trying to describe the various presentations

IME If "warm" had an associated frequency response curve, then #2 would be it....in the most general sense.

The proverbial "House Curve" [Y]

[Deang]

Within those curves we find certain flavors which are related to things like distortion signatures & aberrations in response (several reasons for this one). So, you now have many variations of "warm" - warm/fat, warm/thin, warm/detailed, etc. You can have bright/shrill, bright/smooth, bright/analytical, etc. Then we have things like punchy, solid, good slam, open, effortless, clean, transparent and of course their corresponding opposites. The curves provide a baseline, and within those various curves we hear a lot of different things that create the overall signature or presentation. I was at a show once and a woman next to me stated that the sound grated on her nerves. I told her it was because the sound was shrill and etched. She turns to me and says, "Yes, exactly, it's terrible." So let's add "terrible" to the list.

[tube fanatic]

She turns to me and says, "Yes, exactly, it's terrible." So let's add "terrible" to the list.

One that I've heard from more than one person is that the sound "is making my ears bleed." Conjures up some "pleasant" thoughts!

[garyrc]

Within those curves we find certain flavors which are related to things like distortion signatures & aberrations in response (several reasons for this one). So, you now have many variations of "warm" - warm/fat, warm/thin, warm/detailed, etc. You can have bright/shrill, bright/smooth, bright/analytical, etc. Then we have things like punchy, solid, good slam, open, effortless, clean, transparent and of course their corresponding opposites. The curves provide a baseline, and within those various curves we hear a lot of different things that create the overall signature or presentation. I was at a show once and a woman next to me stated that the sound grated on her nerves. I told her it was because the sound was shrill and etched. She turns to me and says, "Yes, exactly, it's terrible." So let's add "terrible" to the list.

If you found it "shrill," and she found it "terrible," I wonder what the people showing the product thought? Perhaps someone just plunked on a bad recording.

I like etched, but don't like shrill.

With a recording that has a lot of IM, TIM, various unnamed distortions, microphone diaphragm crashing, etc., a curve rising toward the high end may sound bright/shrill. With the same curve, a relatively undistorted recording can sound exciting, present, and nicely shimmering.

I sometimes call bright/shrill "knife in the ear." The first time I used those words was at an early 70 mm, 6 channel mag sound showing of Star Wars, in a theater that had previously run 7 70 mm films, 6 with exemplary sound, and 1 with pretty good sound. I should say I may well be one of the world's greatest fans of 6 track mag sound in a well equipped theater. The 6 great sounding films mentioned above were warm/detailed, with plenty of shimmer, but Star Wars was quite shrill. When they re-released Star Wars to the same theater some 12 or 15 years later, they did something to it, and we got dull/muddy/congested. This time, I called LucasFilm, and was told to complain to Fox post-production. I asked for their email, and the guy from Lucas said, "Fox post production doesn't have an email -- they have a hard time keeping up." Never got an answer to my snailmail. In three rooms in my past, I could make the DVD of Star Wars sound good, but I'm having difficulty getting enough shimmer without shrillness in our current room, which sounds excellent with most CDs, SACDs, movies, and even HD Radio.

Different people make different choices with a bad recording. Would you rather attenuate the treble in some way to get rid of shrillness and get less air and shimmer, or would you rather tolerate a little shrillness, and get the sparkle? Most women I know (but not every woman!) would rather attenuate treble, and quite a few men would not. I usually take the toleration option, or chuck the CD onto a back shelf and never play it. Since most women have better high frequency hearing, that might explain some of the variance. Moving on to a non-gender variable, I find that people unfamiliar with the sound of live orchestras up close tend to want less treble. Those of us with lots of live musical experience (especially acoustical) want a little more treble, but chuck a fair number of CDs. We want our jazz sax sound to be detailed and with storng high frequencies, even if they are chewing the reed. We long for violin sound like that on 1963's Erick Friedman plays Violin Showpieces (now available on HDTT), or a Paganini violin record (I can't put my hand on it right now) cut in 1952! If they could do it right 50 or 61 years ago, why not now (microphone placement too close now???).

[fuzzydog]

Y'all don't get me wrong. I very much prefer a recording which has what I consider to be a natural, balanced sound (perhaps described as "warm"). I guess what gets me going is when people talk about an amp or a speaker as sounding "warm". I can make a "cold" recording sound warmer by running it through an equalizer, but absent an equalizer, a high fidelity system should accurately reproduce the signal that it is fed, IMO.

[Mongo171]

I can make a "cold" recording sound warmer by running it through an equalizer, but absent an equalizer, a high fidelity system should accurately reproduce the signal that it is fed, IMO.

A cold recording can be manipulated to sound different. Without any help, you get crap in/crap out. Specially with Klipsch speakers.

[Deang]

"... a high fidelity system should accurately reproduce the signal that it is fed, IMO." -- you've defined "accurate" as "flat". The loudspeaker is fed what is essentially a perfectly flat response. Because of the way our hearing works, a flat response actually sounds bright and short on bass. Most people don't find that kind of sound very pleasing. "Accurate reproduction" falls short in my book. I think that if distortion is very low and the FR is reasonably flat, then you've met the definition of "high fidelity". Something "accurate" that doesn't compel you to listen because if sounds annoying fails the test. Ever look at the FR curves of some of really good headphones or in ear monitors?

[Quiet_Hollow]

Ever look at the FR curves of some of really good headphones or in ear monitors?

+10 to 12 dB below 100 Hz on most.

Started looking into that when I was mixing videos with my earbuds and cross-checking the edits against the house system (which is set to flat most of the time).

Made sense with what I was hearing...boosted bass.

[Rick]

This was perhaps the warmest sounding receiver Marantz ever made...lol... []

[Mongo171]

This was perhaps the warmest sounding receiver Marantz ever made...lol...

I think "crispy" is another adjective we can give to this receiver's sound.

[artto]

clinical sound.

Who comes up with these words? Seriously.

Where did that one get started? Who approved it?

hahaha Tom. You're showing your age (that you're not an old timer like myself, LOL).

The "clinical sound" sound thing came about in the early days of solid state amplification, when the marketing departments were trying to convince the general public and audio enthusiasts that solid state was better sounding than tubes. Probably the early Crown amps like the DC300 were most often described as "clinical", as if it were supposed to be a good thing, as in very, very clean. They may have been very, very clean and could drive anything, even a washing machine or welding but they still didn't sound very good even though they measured better with what was known at the time.

All these silly terms are relative connotations anyway. For instance, "warm" is just a short for "not sounding strident or edgy" (technical translation = doesn't hurt my ears)

No one approved it. Origination? Look no further than the same old high-end audio rag propaganda peddlers. Some things never change!

[artto]

Hmmmmm....how does S**tty sound? [:^)]