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Questions for specialists on “warmth”



I have heard sound from speakers that are more neutral and detailed in texture and focus the presence of all frequencies, sound that captured air resonance and produced a holographic image, but I doubt that’s what warmth is.

It seems to me that “warmth” is manipulated by engineering.
What is the purpose of “warmth”?
Does it actually exists or is it in imagination, or is it given a phony name (resonating warmer air?) in result I couldn’t link what I heard to “warmth”.

Sorry for the many questions below, without evidence of existence of this “warmth”, I get that feeling somebody is telling me the earth is flat whenever they mention “warmth”.

Maybe it is more psychological, is it then related to the release of a certain type of chemical in the body?

I had thought that maybe warmth means organic. If that’s true, is warmth created with possible ways to give the listener organic illusions? If that’s true, can the sound become too warm that it becomes hot; or too organic that it makes the actually sound we hear in our daily lives in comparison cold, is that good for one’s marriage?

What are the differences between warm and cold, can any expert give some generalization of the technical differences that sets them apart? Are the sound manipulated, how?

How can warmth be created from the play back perspective?
Cable
With what material, why
With what construction, why
Digital
Why and what done in digital processing; AD (analogy to digital) and DA
Speaker
Are they then best to be construction with organic material?
trackmango

Showing 2 responses by undertow

undertow
1,033 posts
 
Newbee that does make sense, its cut short adding barriers that you hear as anylitical.. Something that sounds warmer seems to let notes decay with a slightly fuzzier tone or something, its not so cut and dry sounding, or very plastic. And then a lot of it comes down to the recording itself.
undertow
1,033 posts
 
Warmth in my opinion is when you have the upper and lower mid's to blend a bit better with a type of harmonic distortion that is pleasing to the ear, vs. the excessive overly accurate and piercing sound, or overly defining something like a womens voice, guitar, etc...with a more smooth and spread out sound. Basically the way I see it is if you hear a little warm and fuzzy in the middle making it less direct at you, its kinda like it spreads it out and has a more faded roll off with a unique fatter or deeper kinda echo quality.
How do you get there? Not sure, but so far the only way I have kept pretty explosive dynamics, with a good solid touch of warmth and not going to far one way or the other is with:
1-Paper drivers to handle the mids..

2-Tubes in most cases have the ability to help and tube rolling can find this character if you try.

3-Pretty high efficiency just so its not too warm and dynamics don't get lost easily.

4-mostly copper based cables with the occasional silver coating, but you gotta experiment.

5-very strong power supplys which is why I pretty much went with a good tubey sounding preamp and neutral solid state amps.

....Most other variations of equipment have been tuffer to achieve such results for me. And yes in a way Vinyl is far easier to reach this magical "warmth" By default, but digital can do it, it just takes a pretty good D/A conversion of the right type to make it happen.
This is not the end all be all, but just my results after years of looking for the most musical simple sound that has dynamic definition, but still pleasing with warmth.
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