Warm vs. Analytical

I'm with Zaikesman. Clinical/Analytical means you are hearing an X-ray of the music: the information is all there, just not the depth of emotion/soul. Similar to a mechanical performance. Warm, lush sound is a good thing, at least up to the point where you (the listener) find the loss of accuracy, clarity and detail to be fatiguing. Too much warmth in the sound is comparable to an overly finessed performance.

All in all, I cant see Musiical Fidelity works as you said. In fact, my opinion is that only Krell can give you more analytical sense while all others you mentioned are warm.

If you want analytical, try German brand, Audionet, UK brand, Advantage, Dutch brand, Sphinx, French, Cairn

Until then you will know what is analytical.

Cheers.

When the system is overly warm you're left with a "it can sound better than this" uneasy feeling. Too analytical and you have lots of "wow, listen to that!" distracting experiences.

Warm is too much forest. Analytical is too many trees.

These are just terms referring to tonal shifting when descibing overall sound.

Analytical, lean, bright, etched etc means increased treble energy from ideal nuetral balance. Can also be acheived by decreasing bass energy from neutral balance

Warm, rich, sweet, lush etc means increased bass energy from ideal neutral balance. Can also be acheived by reducing treble energy from neutral balance.

These terms have nothing really to do with amount of detail resolution, soundstage size etc. Of course everyone's idea of neutral sound is different so this all subjective terminology.

It appears, at least to me, from reading the responses that there is not an overall consensus on the definition of these terms, as well as other audio terms; this really doesn't surprise me. The list of audio terms is outrageously enormous which just adds confusion, IMO.

One says Neutral is ideal another says Neutral is boring; one says warm is good another says warm is not good.

Looking at some of the definitions given at the Stereophile link can further the confusion.

It is no wonder there are many disagreements.

FWIW -
neutral - Free from coloration.

warm - The same as dark, but less tilted. A certain amount of warmth is a normal part of musical sound.

analytical - Very detailed, almost to the point of excess.

dark - A warm, mellow, excessively rich quality in reproduced sound. The audible effect of a frequency response which is clockwise-tilted across the entire range, so that output diminishes with increasing frequency. Compare "light."

light - Lean and tipped-up. The audible effect of a frequency response which is tilted counterclockwise. Compare "dark."

coloration - An audible "signature" with which a reproducing system imbues all signals passing through it.

(As you can see, some definitions need others to define themselves! At least in audio slang.)