The 'warmth' of vinyl.

[catman]

G'day all, I often hear mention of the 'warmth' of vinyl, yet I can't say that all phono cartridges exhibit that 'warmth'. Certainly my M97xE's do and I love that 'warmth'.

Well recorded acoustic spanish guitar sounds exquisite as reproduced via the M97xE optimally loaded for the Shure Audiophile response curve. I personally tend to regard that 'sound' as being particularly close to the 'real thing'.

Yet not all phono cartridges sound overly warm. Perhaps the AT95E is the best example that I can think of. It can sound wonderful, but not especially 'warm'.

It gets complex as the phono stage can be a definite factor here too. Indeed one of my kit phono stages 'sound' always reminds me of being in a deep freeze, even when teamed with an M97xE! What are others preferences that way? Warm or cool, or something other? :scratch2: Regards, Felix aka catman.

 

[tubeboob]

I too love that "warm" sound, that slight prominence of mid bass, and I stress "slight", as it is almost not there.

The caveat it that there can be no loss of detail, nor can there be any bass bloat, as both of these qualities will suffer my ears tremendously.

As far as needles and carts go, I find myself particularly attracted to the Pickering XSV with the D-3000 needle. Simply superb.

Noise is minimized, while that detailed yet warm sound comes through.

Cheers

 

[jrtrent]

G'day all, I often hear mention of the 'warmth' of vinyl, yet I can't say that all phono cartridges exhibit that 'warmth'. Certainly my M97xE's do and I love that 'warmth'.

I've always preferred warm, too. Stantons, Grados, and the M97xE all seem to have that characteristic warm tonality that I like. HiFi World reviewed all of the 2M cartridges from Ortofon, and said, "A notable feature of the new Ortofon 2M Moving Magnet cartridges is a frequency response that tilts slowly upward as frequency rises. I have never seen such a trend before in any cartridge. It suggests they will sound forward and detailed, certainly lacking the traditional warmth of moving magnets." In comparing them to products from Nagaoka and Shure, the latter were described as "warm, fluffy and romantic" while the 2M Ortofons were, "ruthlessly forensic" and "intensely communicative." I prefer warm and fluffy.

 

[Beobloke]

The trouble is, one man's "warm" is another man's "dull". I personally find the M97xE to be a rather drab sounding device, although certainly not unpleasant, whereas I still feel that the Ortofon 2M Black is the best MM I have ever heard.

As to general comments about vinyl's "warmth", this just strikes me as a sweeping generalisation put about by digital fans who've never heard a decent turntable!

 

[grottyash]

isn't accuracy and zero distortion what we're aiming for?

 

[Mister Pig]

What I find is that when higher quality analog gear is put into play there is an increase in transparency, a lowering of the noise floor, and this leads to improved inner detail and resolution. The overy coloration of "warmth" decreases and everything moves closer to what live music can feel like...hopefully what is captured in the recording. Or it exposes the multi track recording as a creation of the studio.

Great analog and great digital actually come closer in presentation.....moving closer to real music. So in the analog world there is less and less of this overt warmth to the sound. But analog and digital do sound fundamentally different, and a good table set up has a coherency to the souhd that defines its nature. Much of it seems to be that "timing" thing mentioned by the PRAT kind of people.

Regards
Mister Pig

 

[SPEC2man]

Zero distortion? I quit looking at specs years ago, I currently love my garage setup :

Low watt Quicksilver tubes (Mini mites)

Altec 14's,

Technics 1200 MKII\Denon DL103r

and my beloved Coffman G1-A preamp

I get just the right non fatiguing sound. Slightly warm, I can listen for hours without any of the old digital hangover. I have switched back and forth to the Sumiko Blackbird but for the money the 103r is a bargain. Yes, warm is where it's at for me. I can run digital through the system with great luck as well but I prefer the table.

Dull, rolled off, flat , lifeless ... keep em coming. I am in a sweet place and I'm not going anywhere.

 

[Dr Tinear]

isn't accuracy and zero distortion what we're aiming for?

I'm afraid that view went out of style around the same time that disco did. Today's subjective reviewers don't seem to care much about accuracy and low measured distortion. The attributes they listen for are described by pretty adjectives, not numbers.

 

[lini]

Hmmm, hard to describe - I think for myself I actually prefer "detailed, but smooth" to an actually warm/romantic colouration, which I'd rather regard as somewhat mushy or fuzzy. Shall mean that I actually like tons of detail, but only when presented with hardly any harshness and barely noticable grain.

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini

 

[dosmalo]

Maybe it doesn't have anything to do with the technical aspect or the gear. An example: I love that certain sound of when the stylus just first touches down on the lead in groove of an LP. To me there is a lot of warmth in that sound and it's never mattered what stylus, phono pre etc is used. It's a sound that is lacking in any other media. That sound sounds like warmth to me.

 

[iLUVanalog]

I would second lini's pursuit of "detailed but smooth", with no particular frequency area either too prominent or too subdued, and fortunately I get that with most table/cartridge combinations. Best music with which to audition any system: solo piano; female voice. If your system gets these two essentials correctly, the rest of the spectrum will fall into place.

 

[Pio1980]

Interesting and timely! There was some mention in another thread of cutter head technology advancements and other developments in analogue recording and I've noticed since changing my playback gear that the 70's all-analogue "sound" tends to be more pleasantly yet accurately analogue-like where-as the 1980's sound is a "harder" sound sometimes bordering on glare-to-harshness, which I might ascribe to the "faster" cutting trechnology running ahead/afoul of the existing digital mastering technology coming into common use for the coveted "DDD" mastering chain logo on the "new" digital compact discs. Edgy harsh hardness and other unpleasant artifacts were hallmarks of earlier digital sound as it went from denial to refinement.
Comparing Joni Mitchell's 'Don Juan's Reckless Daughter' to 'Chalk Mark in a Rainstorm' is instructive as I would guess the latter was digitally mastered and while resplendent with etched shallow detailing is ultimately unpleasant and fatiguing to listen to in depth.

 

[slippers-on]

I've always preferred warm, too. Stantons, Grados, and the M97xE all seem to have that characteristic warm tonality that I like. HiFi World reviewed all of the 2M cartridges from Ortofon, and said, "A notable feature of the new Ortofon 2M Moving Magnet cartridges is a frequency response that tilts slowly upward as frequency rises. I have never seen such a trend before in any cartridge. It suggests they will sound forward and detailed, certainly lacking the traditional warmth of moving magnets." In comparing them to products from Nagaoka and Shure, the latter were described as "warm, fluffy and romantic" while the 2M Ortofons were, "ruthlessly forensic" and "intensely communicative." I prefer warm and fluffy.

There are certainly other things that can come into play in warmth.

I run a 2M Black through the new Creek OBH 15 MK2 phono amp. The 2M black is the best MM cart I have heard, and its better than some MC carts at 1200 and below...it has great insight into music.

The Cart is outstanding at digging out detail. Its far reaching in the top end has great mid range presence and the bottom is full. In a proper set up with good gear its outstanding....and I would not say its overly warm, but neither is it bright sounding but more on the lively sound of neutral. Its not laid back or warm like a GRADO cart.

Before I changed tubes in my preamp, I was using Gold Lion tubes, and they where great....but I changed to Mullard tubes and boy, nice! Warmer but not laid back or boring...top end still far reaching and bottom still full, but there is more flesh on the bones. The music is even more real like and I have a very nice plush, lush mid range presence that was not as good with the Gold Lion tube...but back to the 2M Black....its a wonderful cart even without tubes. And as far as emotion and romance....you get all that with the 2mBlack....its a wonderful cart.

 

[grottyash]

I'm afraid that view went out of style around the same time that disco did. Today's subjective reviewers don't seem to care much about accuracy and low measured distortion. The attributes they listen for are described by pretty adjectives, not numbers.

Yes, and it's a shame, though some it crops up regularly as a topic on a couple of forums.

I think people don't like accepting warmth, for example, as a distortion, which technically it is. That's one of the reasons I like the Clearaudio take on vinyl sound, which is basically uncoloured, detailed and not a mile away from how my CD player sounds.

 

[jblnut]

Yes, and it's a shame, though some it crops up regularly as a topic on a couple of forums.

I think people don't like accepting warmth, for example, as a distortion, which technically it is. That's one of the reasons I like the Clearaudio take on vinyl sound, which is basically uncoloured, detailed and not a mile away from how my CD player sounds.

The term 'warmth' can also mean a boost in the low-mid midrange frequencies to give the music more "body". It's not always a measure of distortion.

jblnut

 

[Cù Faoil]

Stuff

100% agree.

I look for total accuracy. The 2M Black is the only MM cart I have ever heard that can make a harpsichord sound like it is in the room in front of me. The Kontrapunkt B runs it very close but never quite gets there.
If that is "ruthlessly forensic" then I am all for it :yes:

Just last night I put on Pinball Wizard by the Who and the reality of the intro just made me involuntarily laugh out loud.

If it's real enough to be emotional I don't care if you call it clinical, warm, or whatever.

 

[Dr Tinear]

The term 'warmth' can also mean a boost in the low-mid midrange frequencies to give the music more "body". It's not always a measure of distortion.

jblnut

A boost in the lower mids is a type of distortion. It's a deviation from flat amplitude response. Perhaps the word "coloration" would be a better choice to describe this type of editorializing on the sound, as it carries fewer negative connotations than "distortion."

 

[rolltide]

I like a slightly warm sound. I understand this constitutes distortion and therefore "wrong"; I'm okay with this.

 

[dlaloum]

A lot of S-arms have a slight resonance around 250Hz - the "warmth" region...

straight arms tend to place their own resonances up higher....

Our perception of sound can be altered by as litle as 0.2db change - so it doesn't take much of a drop or boost for subjective responses like warm/cool to be generated - and our systems are far from being sufficiently perfect to get close to a +/-0.1db frequency response (which is what it would take to eliminate these effects!)

just a thought!

bye for now

David

 

[bobins08]

The term 'warmth' can also mean a boost in the low-mid midrange frequencies to give the music more "body". It's not always a measure of distortion.

jblnut

I agree with this. That is at least how I interpret the term "warm sound".

Like stated previously, the M97xE meets this warm definition but can also be perceived as dulled. Depends on the person and their likes.

I like the sound of vinyl over CDs mainly because CDs tend to make me tired. I get fatigued easily listening to digital formats. I also like the bigger soundstage that I hear with vinyl over digital.