Is "warm" a compliment or a criticism?

One man's ceiling is another man's floor-Paul Simon

It's usually neither. It is more like a benchmark as with dead neutral as the center. Krell preamps have had the reputation as being stark, cool, tremendous base slam. Where the top end Classe preamp, has been descriped as warm, rounded,laid back similar to Rowland equipment. None of the aforementioned descriptions are positive or negative, just a positioning on the neutral continum. It does turn into a negative when a Reviewer states that the sound was too cool or too warm. As in most things who is to say what is dead neutral. Everyone has their own perspective of what a system is supposed to sound like. Whether your system is yin or yang, if your tapping your feet to the music, who cares.

Gunbei, Are you having a Wierd Science kinda day? All your posts are Female Part's related? Feet, Curves, Etc... Could get somewhat Warm if your sitting in front of your computer with a Wonder-Bra on your head, designing the Perfect Woman.

Audiobugged, actually your picture of me is a lot closer to the mark than you think. It's what I do for a living. Sans the bra on my head. Heheh.

It is possible it arrives only as an observation, a way to discern a components contribution to a systems overall sound. I have viewed it both ways. Rigid thinking has me rejecting colorations of any kind, and for that I am a bit at odds with my system. Ideally, I want the recording as is.That is ideal. Yet, I imagine that I can really only imagine what that means. In reality, it seems the warm sound resulting from the choices I have made for my system makes for a friendlier listen and this is ultimately my preference. All of it and warmth, and then everything my way.