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

02-08-11: Hifibri
Recording studios can and usually are 'warm', dead maybe, designed to lack reverberations to control the sound, but not usually characterized as cold. Great pains are taken to control studio acoustics.

02-08-11: Learsfool
Great pains are usually taken indeed, but almost never to make it "warm." In fact, quite the opposite - the engineers want the room to be as dead as possible...

I guess the issue here is whether "deadness" and "warmth" are mutually exclusive characteristics. Personally, I have mixed feelings about that.

Over short distances, a dead room can preserve both the frequency response and the harmonic content of an acoustic instrument or voice, both of which are elements of "warmth," as I understand it.

Over longer distances, dead rooms will typically attenuate high frequencies more rapidly than other frequencies. What that does to the perception of warmth is a bit paradoxical. It seems like the attenuation of high frequencies might increase the perception of warmth, since it will result in a comparative emphasis on midrange and low frequencies. But dead rooms also remove reverberation, which, as Learsfool and Al pointed out, is an important element in the perception of warmth. If that's true, then dead rooms, at longer distances, may not sound warm after all.

Learsfool - It's clear that you feel that a dead recording room is a detriment to the perception of warmth. I wonder whether you feel the same way about a dead *listening* room?

Bryon

Bryon, warmth is additive property and it is also subtractive and is a component of a neutral sound. An analogy using the most common meaning for the word warmth would be to take your ideal room temperature, say 70 degrees. This would be your 'neutral'. By subtracting warmth you would cool the room, by raising the temperature you would warm it. The same is true for reproduced sound when the term warmth is used.

Learsfool, we are in agreement, just misunderstanding the terms we are using. While we both agree studios are typically dead sounding, i.e. lacking reverberant sound, the source of the sound and therefore the fundamental frequencies of the live sound do not change therefore the 'body' and 'warmth' of the sound remain. With the absence of reverberant sound there is no 'air' or room ambience this defines the term ‘dead’ (giving recording engineers maximum possibilities in tailoring the sound).

Taking the opposite extreme, in a space with nothing but hard surfaces, the fundamental frequencies created by the source again do not change, the source is still ‘warm’ but the multiplying of frequencies bouncing off room surfaces (the specific frequencies and resulting ‘sound’ are dependent on the reflective qualities of the surfaces and the size of he room), giving a sound that is too ‘live’.

Interestingly, sounds in an anechoic chamber are as ‘pure’ as one could get because they are not influenced by room boundaries. We are not accustomed to being is an anechoic chamber so the sounds we hear in them sound eerily unnatural but in actuality they are as ‘perfect’ as possible, composed of the same frequencies and proportions as created by the source, we are just so used to the addition of reflected sound. So knowing no recording is ‘perfect’ this leads us back to the big question; What are we trying to achieve with our systems? I say, ‘If it sounds good, do it!’

Terrific dialog, well done fellas! While I understand what's been said, my experience has been a simpler one. I bought a pair of Spendor S100's in 1990. At the time, my system was solid-state driven. I was able to audition a pair of (at the time) very highly praised Thiel 3.5's at my home also. To me, comparing the Thiels to the Spendors was the epitome of 'warm' vs. 'analytical'. Again, everyone hears differently, but for me, those Thiels were unlistenably strident (apologies to Thiel fans!). Whenever I switched back to the Spendors it was such a relief! I still own the Spendors, my system has changed over the yrs to all-tube so I'm feeling warmer and fuzzier all the time!;) IMO, the Spendors lean towards MY understanding of 'warm' sound regardless of signal source. So perhaps the answer of how to get 'warm' sound can simply be to try a different set of spkrs.

Hi Bryon and Hifibri - both of your last posts have fascinated me. I did not realize that audiophiles used the term "warmth" in quite the way you both describe - specifically, equating warmth with the body of the sound, as Hifibri put it, or with the frequency response/harmonic content of it, as Bryon put it. To me, the body of the sound is quite separate from the "warmth" of it, though of course it will have a significant effect on the perception of "warmth." And certainly "warmth" is not equated with frequency response in my mind. I won't go into it in any boring detail here, but musicians work very hard on the relative "warmth" of their tones depending on what sort of passage or what composer we are playing. We work for as many different shades of color we can get, and all of these would have varying degrees of "warmth." So I guess I am using the term much more in the sense of "color" than you are (another reason why I strongly dislike the negative connotations in the use of the audiophile term "coloration").

Hifibri, you are correct that we are basically in agreement, then, if I have understood your post. However, I would still argue that a recording studio or other "dead" space will most certainly have a very significant effect on the perceived "warmth" of the sound. In such a "dead" space, no matter how "warm" a tone the player creates, the fact that it almost immediately dies away has a huge effect on the perceived "warmth." This would have nothing to do with frequency response or harmonics, but the "deadness" of the space. You are correct, of course, in what you say about the anechoic chamber, but I think it should go without saying that no one would ever want or expect music to be either created or listened to in such an environment. So I of course agree with your ending - if it sounds good, do it! This, of course, will be different for every individual.

So yes, Bryon, I would argue that a "dead" listening room is indeed a detriment to "warmth." In fact, I think we have actually had this conversation in a slightly different context elsewhere. As we all know, the same equipment can sound very different in different environments, and this is the biggest reason why, IMO.

Leersfool, yes, the use of terminology is fascinating. Both Bryon and I are in agreement that warmth does have to do with frequency response and harmonic structure as in ‘warm tone’. Although ambient information or ‘air’ is usually a description of room reverberations, live vs dead, and is commonly used to describe this as a separate quality from warmth. You can have a warm sound with little or no ‘air’ or ambient information. Likewise you can have a cold, thin, bleached out sound with lots of ‘air’. A sound in an anechoic chamber dies quickly after it stops as result of the lack of ambience or ‘air’ but its propagated composition including warmth remains wholly intact until it is absorbed. In a highly reflective ‘live’ room, the character or warmth would change as the additive layering of certain reflected frequencies would ‘color’ (sorry had to use it :) ) the sound. Audiophiles do use the word ‘color’, as you may know, to describe a systems ability to resolve different timbres, as in “listen to the tonal color”. Crazy hobby huh?

Chazro, the Spendor S100’s are great speakers. Yes, on the warm side of 'neutral' but they are music lovers speakers.