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

02-16-11: Unsound
"...While other hall effects might sound cool". Yes, but I would think that's more likely in small, highly reverberant halls, and not as likely to happen in typical concert venues.

02-16-11: Almarg
I can't remember ever being in a hall in which the instruments sounded "cool," in the way that they can on some recordings.

My apologies. I wasn't very clear in my last post. When I used the phrase "hall effects," I intended to refer to the acoustical characteristics of recording spaces that might or MIGHT NOT be a concert hall. In other words, I intended "hall effects" to simply mean "acoustical effects," and I should have said as much.

What I was trying to express was the idea that some acoustical environments, whether a recording space or a listening space, can CONTRIBUTE to the perception of warmth, while other acoustical environments can DIMINISH the perception of warmth.

The fact that most concert halls - being highly acoustically designed environments - contribute to the perception of warmth is something I do not take issue with. I was merely trying to point out that LESS WELL DESIGNED acoustical environments might diminish the perception of warmth. Two things seem to follow from that observation. First, for recordings that lack warmth, the acoustics of the recording space might be a factor. Second, for systems that lack warmth, the acoustics of the listening space might be a factor.

Bryon

If a space can't support or leaks the lower frequencies, and at the same time reverberates or enhances the higher frequencies, though not typically likely to happen, I would suspect the results would be "cool".

Bryon, Re Room treatments/tuning, like everything else in audio, ain't a Sunday walk in the park with a pretty girl.

Depends on what you are trying to change to create 'warmth'. In this post I will assume that 'warmth' means unemphasized highs with or without a corresponding wide but small boost in the lower mid-range thru to the upper bass. Room dimensionally induced issues? Set up issues? Equipment selection issues? Treatment selection absorption/dispersive panels, traps, etc, all of which require careful selection given the source of the 'problem' are critical.

For example, excessive sounding highs can be caused by equipment types or positioning relative to reflective surfaces. They can be controlled/reduced by speaker location, orientation, or using sound dispersion or absorption panels.

But, as in the case of absorption panels, a common type of treatment recommended and used by audiophiles, if the materiel used covers a broader frequency range than needed, i.e. you need to knock down a 5K peak but use materials which are absorptive down to 1500k you will have dulled down an otherwise well balanced mid range. This might enhance the sound of the lower mid range/bass to some folks but not to all.

Conversely if you have an upper mid-range peak, a very common problem in speaker and electronics, and you try to damp it with absorption materials you loose the highs as well as the mid-range peak. For me that removes specific absorbers from the list of possibilities unless you can figure out how to compensate for the unwanted change. And so it goes with a just few room treatments but set up problems as well as speakers and electronics share the same issues. How to get balance in your room? Even the experts often can't get it right.

So, to my point (finally). Tubes. If you have speakers appropriate to your room and to tubes in the first place, and these speakers have a reasonably good sense of 'natural' resolution, by using tube equipment and carefully using (rolling) tubes therein to get you to your sonic goals, you can tame common HF problems and even add some bass /lower mid range boost (that warmth you are looking for?).

The possibilities with tube equipment seem as endless as the frustrations experienced by many in the implementation of tubes, especially by those who aren't all that dedicated and like quick fixes, or miracles. One of the things that I would always recommend because of the learning curve involved is to keep it simple, even knowing that ultimately someone might want an all tube system. For example, there are quite a few good integrated tube amps now and are an excellent place to start as opposed to introducing separates and making a mixed system.

And, FWIW, realizing that there exists those who will vehemently disagree, with ss stuff you are excluded from changing its sonic signature significantly, keeping it off the horizons for adventurers. Wires and little black boxes can only do so much.

But I digress and apologize for going off point and getting on a box with such simple observation

Many feel some speakers are "warmer" sounding than others.

I have always tended to attribute this to tonality, ie the relative balance of frequencies with warmer speakers tending to have less emphasis on treble or higher frequencies relative to midrange in general.

I'm wondering do different speaker designs handle harmonics differently? that would seem to be the case if harmonics is the main factor in determining warmth.

Most discussion of harmonics I have read tend to be about how different amplifier technologies deal with harmonics.

But what about speakers then assuming some speakers are inherently warm and others less so, which I believe to be the case.

Mapman, FWIW, I agree with your first two sentences. I think tonal differences in speakers can easily be effected by enclosure design, speaker selection, and crossover design.

Except for those speakers which have been intentionally designed to use its natural resonance frequencies to enhance a tone, the speakers 'harmonics' would not greatly affect its frequency response so much as its resolution.

For example, if the cabinet had an unsuppressed resonance frequency of, say 350hz, it would likely sound muddy/boomy, not natural at all, and something I think a designer would want to avoid like the plague.

In the context of this thread I think 'harmonics' is a term referring to the overall tone of an instrument and how it is replicated in the recording or playback process, something that it best appreciated with the choice of a violin, guitar, piano, etc, which all have sound boards which resonate and create complex sounds (harmonics) resulting in a natural tone. Not a warm tone, not a cool tone, a natural tone, the signature of the instrument itself, and not the recording or playback process. That tone is what it is. That is what I think when I use the term 'natural'.

Personally I'm not comfortable in referring to speaker designed tone, hall acoustics, or home room acoustics as 'harmonics' in the same sense as those of instruments.