What is Warmth?

If I understand you correctly, it is not that warm audio equipment have tilted frequency response per se but more that distortion from 2nd harmonic is more pronounced at the bottom end giving illusion to more lower frequency and less at the top, is that correct?

Generally, yes.

I suppose audio equipment is not supposed to add its own signature of harmonics and just play whatever signals that is passed through only.

Right- audio equipment should not editorialize :)

I am curious if you might have an example of equipments that you would consider to be one that is able to tame most of the harmonics created by audio equipment itself. Certain equipment that tends to emphasize clarity and detail that comes with cold, analytical tendency probably has its own set of distortion as well. What would be your closest ideal to neutrality?

Once a bit of electronics has added harmonics (distorted) to the sound there is nothing you can do downstream to correct that (although many people do try, in the name of 'synergy' which in most cases seems to be the act of compounding one distortion with another, although if you were to ask them they would tell you that they are using the 'synergy' to deal with tonal issues). The gear that you are referring to with the 'cold analytical tendency' usually is lacking the lower orders of distortion, but has trace amounts of the higher orders (in particular the 5th, 7th and 9th harmonics). The human ear uses these harmonics to gauge the volume of a sound; IOW we are very sensitive to this type of distortion, so much so that we can often hear it even when our test instruments have trouble measuring it in the noise floor of the amplifier/preamp under test. Audiophiles have terms for such distortion; the phrase 'cold analytical tendency' that you used is an excellent example.

Excellent point, Ralph:

HiFi systems can have warmth too. This is not natural- it is a coloration caused not so much by frequency response errors (as is the common myth) but instead by distortion.

The 2nd order harmonic is the most to blame, and is why SETs are so well-known for a warm sound.

So much to say, so little time ..

Cheers,
Thom @ Galibier

When your wife gives you a big hug and kiss.

You guys have taken a subjective word and tried to make a objective answer out of it.

Here is a question which is warmer a alto sax or a tenor? Or how about a trumpet vs flugelhorn?

Maybe we should ask ourselves should that sound electric when there is no electronics involved. Did you give up tone and body for detail?

From what I have seen most people either can not hear or do not care about how it should sound, only that they like the way that system sounds or looks or some other marketing thing.

I will leave you with this who played warmer Dizzy or Miles?

Enjoy the ride
Tom

Hi Tom - while you are correct that warmth, when describing timbre, can be very subjective, there are huge differences between different instruments, and players of the same instruments. A flugelhorn, for instance, is most certainly a warmer timbre generally speaking than that of a trumpet or cornet. Miles Davis had a warmer sound in general than Dizzy. This is not to say that Dizzy did not at times have a very warm timbre. This is not at all a simple thing - many factors go into it. Speaking of brass instruments, the alloy the instrument is made of has much to do with it, as does the design of the instrument, as does the mouthpiece used to play it. In the case of the horn, my instrument, the position of the player's hand in the bell of the instrument has a great effect on the timbre. The way the player's airstream moves into the instrument, and the way the player's embouchre is formed (the position of the lips and the manner in which they buzz or vibrate) and manipulated have a very great effect as well. All of us musicians are constantly working on our timbre production, and the variety of it, and warmth is definitely a word we use to describe it, and we would like an audio system to reproduce this quality. Unfortunately, even the very best recordings played back on the very best systems do not come close to capturing the minute variations in timbre that can be heard live in a good concert hall (speaking of which, the room itself of course has a great deal to do with the perception of warmth, and the room an audio system is in will also have a big part in the listener's perception of warmth).