By popular demand, your winner and topic for this week’s discussion is…
What Does “warm” Mean To You In The Context Of HiFi?
Please share your experiences, knowledge, reviews, questions, or anything that you think might add to the conversation here.
Vote for the next topic in the poll for the next discussion.
Previous discussions can be found here.
Warmth in the context of HiFi is a character of the sound rather than the sound itself.
At the opposite end of this spectrum is cold or clinical, which shouldn’t be inferred as “bad” or “worse” neccessarily, there’s a time and a place for it - like in the studio where the original source material is being edited, mixed, and mastered.
With this same source material now running through say a nice tube preamp and/or amplifier the character of the sound is softened/rounded via very subtle distortion, subtle enough that all of the detail is still there when it meets your ears.
Warmth is for enjoyment, while cold/clinical is academic.