What is “warmth” and how do you get it?

Thanks to everyone for your thoughtful responses.

02-04-11: Hifiman5
"Warmth" is a very difficult characteristic to describe with adjectives. It's for me, the way real instruments sound in an acoustically neutral environment...A "lack of warmth" for me would be if the pluck of each string was unnaturally exaggerated by a "hot" tweeter and the mid and lower mids were not able to deliver the woodiness of the instruments.

Hifiman - On good recordings, my system sounds warm, according to the standard you describe. In fact, I would say the most realistic sounding instrument on my system is acoustic guitar. You may be asking, ‘So what is the problem?’ There isn’t a problem, exactly. On well recorded material, everything is peachy. But on poorly recorded material, I wonder if a “warmer” sounding system would be more rewarding. So, my goal is to expand the range of recordings that sound excellent on the system.

Johnsonwu - You've given me a lot to think about and to research, since I'm not a modder (though I have had some gear professionally modded). This approach to adding warmth is one that interests me. Maybe it’s because changing internal components (caps, resistors, etc.) is as close as it gets to single variable changes, which is appealing to me for its conservatism and degree of control.

Hi Learsfool – I agree with you and with Hifiman that, for acoustical instruments, warmth is a necessary condition for the perception of “real.” Again, on good recordings, acoustic instruments do sound warm, and hence real (to my ears). It’s the poor or merely adequate recordings that I would like to enhance, if possible.

Noble100 - I am considering adding tubes somewhere. Probably not a tube preamp, because I have recently been swayed toward the school of thought that the best preamp is no preamp (i.e. source connected directly to amp; volume controlled, in my case, by computer software). That leaves a tube amp or a dac with a tube output stage. That choice raises some questions:

For the issue of adding warmth, does it matter where in the system the tubes are located? Is the common element of “warmth” in tube components simply the addition of low order harmonics to the signal? And what are the downsides of this approach to adding warmth?

The last question brings me to...

02-05-11: Kijanki
Enhancing even harmonics does sound really nice with guitar or voice but not so with instruments that poses a little more complex than regular overtones harmonic structure...NEUTRAL sound (whatever it is) is the best…

02-05-11: Tmsorosk
Having tuned musical instruments in the past, one thing we listened for was any unnatural warmth, if you could hear warmth something was wrong. Warmth was never considered natural or desirable. It would altar pace, pitch, flow and timing and make an instrument sound less NEUTRAL, most easily noticeable on sting instruments.

02-05-11: Bizango1
I want my system to be NEUTRAL and have the capability of being true to the source. That's my preference.

[emphasis added]

You folks sound like me in another thread, where I argued at great length, against great opposition, for the value of neutrality. Some may find it amusing that I am now asking how to make my system warmer. I haven’t really changed my mind about the whole subject of neutrality. On the whole, I still believe that it is one of the most valuable attributes in a system, for the reasons I expressed on that thread. But I am interested in experimenting with changes that might nudge my system just a bit in the direction of greater warmth. Whether or not that is a nudge AWAY FROM NEUTRALITY is a philosophical question around which we should probably tread lightly, lest this thread turn into Neutrality War II.

The real question I am hoping to explore is HOW you go about making a system warmer. That is, what characteristics of system design promote the impression of warmth, and what are the drawbacks of those characteristics, if any? Part of answering this question involves answering:

Is greater warmth in a system always achieved by ADDING something (e.g., low order harmonics)? Or is it possible that greater warmth can also be achieved by SUBTRACTING something (e.g., some kinds of distortion)?

Thanks again to all.

Bryon

While most agree on the basic meaning, destinctions need to be made about the 'degree' of warmth (pun intended). I think a lot of confusion arises in the inference of the amount of warmth being described and because audiophiles do not have an exact universal definitin. As has been said, it's like trying to describe the smell of an onion or any smell. In general, live music can be described as being warm, as in alive and rich with tone. On the other hand one can describe a system as being 'warm' meaning it is too warm and not natural sounding. The more one listens to various types of live unamplified music, the more one appreciates 'warmth' (rich tone) as being closer to the truth. High frequencies and detail decay faster as distance from the source increase (including many of the attributes the OP indicates). A lot of music is closed miked which captures more high frequency energy and detail
(depening on the recording engineer and mastering of the recording), than a listener in that venue might otherwise hear, making a 'warm' system sound more real with many recordings. The more one listens to different types of live music, with different types of instruments, in different spaces, the more one realizes 'the sound' is always different, yet there is usually always that warmth of tone. Since this is a universal quality of live music, it makes sense to strive for this quality in a system. As always, it's a matter of one's perspective and is just one more aspect that makes this hobby so much fun!

IMO Hifibri's got it..."The more one listens to different types of live music, with different types of instruments, in different spaces, the more one realizes 'the sound' is always different, yet there is usually always that warmth of tone. Since this is a universal quality of live music, it makes sense to strive for this quality in a system."...
...and Mrtennis doesn't. As I said and Hifibri reinforces, the recording process removes natural, real warmth of tone from the sound of the instruments, and it's the reproduction system's job to recreate it. Indeed the system that do that are NOT tonally nuetral or 'accurate', but to me 'accurate' systems sound so much NOT like real music that they're unlistenable, so how accurate is that?

Tuning a system to have the right amount of warmth without sounding thick is difficult, but creating a great-sounding system is tough, isn't it?!?!?!
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...jeez, Jeffrey, spell much? Sorry, hit the wrong button.
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I do not find most systems that I would describe as "warm sounding" to be natural sounding.

Pleasant, especially with acoustic string instruments, yes, but not like what I hear live.

Electronic music often suffers on a too warm sounding system.

GEtting the right dash of warmth perhaps when needed and still sounding good overall is tricky business indeed. Trail and error is the best approach.

I would recommend targeting a neutral sounding system first. Then tweak a pre-amp or source with some tube gear perhaps to get the dash of warmth if needed.

I find the ARC pre-amp in my rig does this perfectly for me. I notice that dash of warmth on occasion but only with certain music and if I am really listening just for that specifically.