Diversity of opinion over what


I find it remarkable that what I percieve as cold and analytical others will call warm. Has this ever happened to you?
My particular situation I'm thinking of was that I sold Musical Fidelity A308 integrated amp, some years ago.I thought was just too SS, hard, cold, etc , sounding for my JM Lab speakers.
The guy I sold it to was very happy (I priced it waay low) and said it was very warm as he had expected it to be.
I didn't argue of course, but was really baffled. Even if he used soft toned speakers, by comparison with other amps it really should have been on the cool to neutral side, or am I way off? Beats me!! So I am asking if you have noticed this too? Either way your Warm is another guys cool etc..
I have learned never to argue about this, one guys "ruler flat" is anothers 'really rolled off top end' and dark. I am not equiped like John Atkinson to argue the point empirically.
My assessment of other sonic charateristic has been endorsed by some friends, in particular with tubes which I love experimenting with. I rarely get into a disagreement on tube qualities.
mechans
different speaker loads bring out different sound qualities in amplifiers as well

also, tonal balance is a fickle thing and speaker placement and cables etc can change tonal balance in a flash

maybe the persons expectations play into it as well and after time he may change his mind...?
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It's not just that different folks have different tastes, it's about synergy too. I'm not trying to offend the OP, but I have always found JM Lab speakers to be hard or analytical. I'm sure they would sound their best with some warmer electronics. Speakers that I enjoy, Verity Audio Parsifal Ovations, others have called lifeless or polite. They will be if you put warm electronics in front of them.

It's about balance and synergy. Warm electronics + revealing speakers = good. Revealing electronics + revealing speakers = not so good, and vice versa. Oh yeah, don't forget to through cables into that mix too. I've heard enough different sounding pieces of gear that I think I can take just about any unit and place it with the right accompanying gear, make it sound very good, or make it sound very bad.

Most of us arrive at a similar location via very different paths. Synergy.
Yes, I think that Jmcgrogan2 nailed it. I personally do not use the word synergy (it's a bad word in my vocubulary) but use 'impedance matching' instead but the undelying principal is the same. Electrically the amplifier must be able to drive the speaker it's being connected. And, if the speaker is too capacitative (for example) then the amp must be stable & not break out into oscillations (which is often manifested as harsh/brittle sound), if the speaker is a low impedance load in the bass area then the amp must have sufficient current delivery.
Like Jmcgrogan2 wrote the speaker cables & pre-power cables also make some difference in the sonics.
It's entirely possible that the amp-speaker interface was just fine your case but it could have been the cables or some electronics upstream? Debugging this is a hard & time consuming job but if you do go down the debugging path you end up learning a lot about what makes your rig tick & that is always worth the effort. The easiest thing to do is to dump the amp....
Anyway, the amp-speaker interface has to be considered very seriously esp. for 99% of the speakers in the market that continue to be ill-designed.
As Bombaywalla says no component is ever heard in isolation; we are always listening to SYSTEMS. I am convinced that there is just about nothing that cannot be made to sound bad by incorrect choices elsewhere in the system. I bought my Apogee Duettas even though they sounded horrible in the store; they are great speakers when set up properly. I agree about the JM Labs; I had a pair of Mini Utopias which could not be faulted for accuracy of sound reproduction but which I was not comfortable with; many others would be. Part of the time I was using my MF NuVista M3 but I had the same impression on other amps as well.