Need definitions of: Dark; Warm; and Bright

Audiophiles have been using these terms with these meanings for decades

For sure these words means something , it is related to the way the relation between some higher harmonics convey the sensation...And all audiophiles can correlate these words to a meaningful sensation.... Saying the opposite would be amateurish or ignorant....

But one this is done, and when others audio factors enter in play, these words are no more enough to characterise audiophile experience in all his dimensions adequately...

Saying that tubes may be warmer and S.S. may be most of the times brighter dont push us way much along the road...When the amplifiers is in the room we must begins to embed all audio gear together in the system, in the room and in the house, taking into account the mechanical, electrical and acoustical working dimensions...

That was my point, not negating the rightful and meaningful content linked to these words use...

Then dont put in my mouth or suggest what i never say: that these words are meaningless... They have a meaning related to the electronical design market of amplifier or speakers, tubes are generally not S.S. sound quality for example ...But others factors plays in acoustic to amplify or to decrease these warm or brighter impression...

But no acoustician characterise a room to be warm or bright...A room can be dead or too much echoing...It is related to timing or reverberation time not to amplifier rendering of harmonics etc...

No musician evaluate sound musical timbre by warm and bright characterisation MAINLY....

When a piano make different timbre impression in my room, when i change the acoustical settings of the room or if i modify the vibrations controls of my gear, or if i modify the electrical noise floor, To describe the result beinng "warmer or brighter" concepts are no more very useful and dont relate well or much to the factors in play...

It is one things to describe sound by some of his aspect for example relation between harmonics envelope of a timbre perception and describing with words all the variables implicated in the perception...We need way more words that warm and bright which related mainly to the electronical design market of speakers amplifiers or dac etc...

It was my point....

To say it in a short way, people must learn many others concepts and not evaluate system with this meaningful but limiting words only... Audiophile experience is linked to many factors not only 2....

I hope it is clearer....

By the way with your experience i will not teach you anything here.... You know way much than me in audio ....But i only expressed here in these 2 posts my limited but insightful personal experience for the sake of the discussion .... I apologize sincerely if my post seems to give you lesson which i am perfectly conscious you dont need at all from me....But i spoke my mind for the discussion ....

my best to you...And my deepest respect....

Errr, Saussure 101.

As atmasphere say, there needs to be a pretty broad consensus as to what a given word refers to, for speakers of a given language to communicate with each other.  Obviously, meaning will still be fuzzy around the edges.

When words a used *metaphorically*, this adds a whole new layer of fuzziness, but people don't realize how much metaphorical usage is part of everyday speech.

Bright/dark has to do with visual perception (light, color) not sound.
Warm has to do with touch or taste.

It works the other way too: you can talk about a loud color.

BTW, this has nothing to do with synaesthesia, it's just standard metaphorical usage.

But metaphorical usage is open to a greater range of interpretation, because it's figurative, and because a given instance will have a different range of connotations (rather than denotations) for a given individual.

as ralph said

Audiophiles have been using these terms with these meanings for decades FWIW.

no point arguing... if you are new, refer to the glossaries i mentioned in an earlier post to understand these and other terms often used

folks who are here to debate ad nauseum are just wasting time... these terms are well known and understood among people who have been been in this pursuit, are commonly used to convey the sound of systems or components

about a month ago i had a good friend in my driving cohort who is fairly new to high end hifi... i had him over and demonstrated to him the sonic differences between analog and digital, the differences between a tubed dac vs a solid state one, a solid state vs a tube amp ... these words were immediately understood by him as we listened and discussed the music that was playing, swapping back and forth

Saying that tubes may be warmer and S.S. may be most of the times brighter dont push us way much along the road...

Actually it does if you understand that this phenomena is entirely the result of distortion- the tubes make the lower harmonics which the transistors do not; thus resulting in tube amps sounding warm and solid state sounding bright, even though on the bench both measure flat.

This also give the designer access to what to do about it; if a solid state amp were made with the same distortion signature as a tube amp it would also sound like one. The relative output impedances of tubes and solid state is almost irrelevant since the ear has a tipping point where it emphasizes tonality induced by distortion over tonality induced by frequency response error. That is why a tube amp potentially can sound more neutral even though it might not be as flat on a certain speaker as a solid state amp.


This is not about tubes/solid state though, its about **distortion**. We've proven that if a solid state amp has a tube-like distortion signature it will very hard to tell it from a really good tube amp. While this might appear subjective (which is what these terms are about) in the end this is the sort of thing that's easy to measure these days as well.