Need definitions of: Dark; Warm; and Bright


Throughout thousands of postings, the descriptive adjectives of dark, warm, and bright are employed.  What does each of them actually mean?  Are these meanings solely subjective, or can they be seen in displays of frequency responses and distortion across an audio spectrum?
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Dark means the sun has set. Warm means that Summer is coming. Bright means you stop looking for word descriptions of what you hear.

Bright means there is too much glare and it's time to get the sunglasses out.

All these terms really suck and are used to justify poor design.

A flat response is the only way to enjoy a recording.
@mammothguy54 Thanks for the nice words!

As for "chocolate mid-range" and "butterscotch highs" -- I have no problem with that. There are words my family and I make up to describe various experiences -- and they are very, very precise because we make them up in circumstances we all experience and we use the terms to function in certain ways.

The only problem with these sorts of made up words and phrases is that they don't have much currency outside our little tribe. Very accurate and useful within one group but not transferable. 

The fundamental issue in this conversation seems to be "which words can be used to describe audio experiences accurately that other people can also learn?"
The descriptive term 'Dark' has the most confusions and different meanings.

Dark is when there is a an overly soft treble that causes no life to the very upper treble.

That's how I understand it. But some reviewers (not from established magazines, but online) seem to think 'Dark' means the sound comes from an overly black background.


Without words, we’re dumb brutes.
Yes, precisely.
I believe all thoughts are made in language, even if we have to invent words and meanings.

Audiophile terms, recognising them, identifying them and correctly understanding their meanings are possibly the greatest hope to convey what we are hearing to another.

Critical listening, comparing, I believe are a learned behavior. Just like almost anything where experience allows someone to differentiate, breed, qualities, or performance.
The fundamental issue in this conversation seems to be "which words can be used to describe audio experiences accurately that other people can also learn?"
It would be completely right if sounds and music experience would overlap completely but they are not...The vocabularey of sound in audio thread is not identical with  the vocabulary of music and acoustic... Then you are right we must have common words to communicate.... But some experience cannot be described by some of the words we use in audio more often... Like "bright" or "warm"....

Then the vocabulary for sounds in audio threads come from electrical design particular tasks and marketing and not from experienced musicians or musical field...

Then appreciation of a system through some kind of music differ anyway much from another kind of music particular requirements...Classical brain dont judge like rock brain....

For example "warm and bright" comes from the electronical condition particular design of the gear links but timbre interpretation and description come from some core non amplified instrumental and vocal music experience...

Psycho acoustic dont use much the audiophile "warm and bright" expression at his core .... Audio thread do....

These concepts made sense ONLY for describing our relation to sounds in a very particular way.... when our system BEGINS to be rightfully embedded in his working mechanical, electrical and acoustical dimensions these words make less and less sense, or we dont need them at all no more.... Even when the fine tuning of a system only begins they lost their importance when comes the times to describe the system translation of sounds into musical perception...

People use them 2brighter or warmer" in relation with a non tuned system out of the box in comparison with their past experience of another system or piece of gear.... For example these speakers or dac or amplifier are warmer than my last one....

But musical acoustical tuning cannot make them very useful more than in a very general almost useless way....

"Timbre", the crux concept of musical perception, is not, ONLY and MAINLY, a bunch of frequencies for the human ears.... Acoustical controls and is more important for example than the design of an amplifier most of the times , save if the design is very bad....And the vocabulary of acoustic cannot be circled with "warm and bright" concepts...

Some acoustical concepts like " imaging", "soundstage", "listener envelopment", "source width" etc keep their meaning more supported in a string of experiments....For example that make no sense at all for me now to describe my audio system with bright and/or warm words, even if i want to describe my taste... I will more easily say that piano timbre is natural the sound distributed out of the speakers distinctly and in a room filling soundstage where i feel sometimes included in the recording theater....Bright? Warm? yes when my acoustical settings are out of tune if i eliminate them the result will be one of these 2 catastophes in loosing the natural "timbre" sound of each instrument...

My best to you and all...