Dark, analytical, bright, warm....what terms, what meanings?

[the sound of Tao]

Frantz, I figure we are creatures of patterns and associations. Music is a pattern and humans relate to it in relatively reliable ways.

We generally relate to the notion of warmth and brightness, with vitality and joy, musically this is expressed in the major tonic. A system that tends to warmth and brightness tends to energise us... sometimes too much. Anything that leads us to be more active or more yang tends to the same patterns. Odd order harmonics tend to be yang or active and bring attack to the note which intensifies the structure of the music and makes it more assertive, amplifies its sense of liveliness.

Equally darkness can be utterly beautiful and it can lead us to peacefulness and refectivity, mellowness and musically it is generally related to the minor chords, is yin in nature and seems to be amplified by a focus on the decay of notes which is a feature of even order harmonics and is restive, in some ways a moving towards the end of things and the stillness.

I figure that as subjective terms the best way to identify if a system is experienced as dark or as warm is that over time it leads us feel more often one of these dualistic experiences.

A friend has a wonderful full range Tune Anima horn system powered by 300b SET amps and it just goes with the flow of the music and leads to a beautifully dark deep connection with the music.

I was lucky enough to have that system here for a couple of months. It taught me about qualities that were missing in the balance with my upstairs system with its 20.7 Maggies that are capable of considerable brilliance and being tuneful by tending towards an active and athletic presentation but the way I had it set up it was expressing the leading edge just marginally over the flow and decay. The ribbons system brought presence and breathed aliveness into the music but the ease and flow of the tune animas system was the other side of the coin.

In the end it just lead me to adapting and making some changes that just relaxed the brilliance just a shade and centred the balance back towards an earthier more tonally centred middle ground.

Im sure you know the struggle to express what we experience and relate it to the technology that allows us to experience it.

This is what perhaps makes this pursuit such a challenge, it is as much art as it is applied science.

 

[Audiophile Bill]

Frantz, I figure we are creatures of patterns and associations. Music is a pattern and humans relate to it in relatively reliable ways.

We generally relate to the notion of warmth and brightness, with vitality and joy, musically this is expressed in the major tonic. A system that tends to warmth and brightness

> this is not possible - you can't have a warm and bright system using musical definitions of the terms

tends to energise us... sometimes too much. Anything that leads us to be more active or more yang tends to the same patterns. Odd order harmonics tend to be yang or active and bring attack to the note which intensifies the structure of the music and makes it more assertive, amplifies its sense of liveliness.

Equally darkness can be utterly beautiful and it can lead us to peacefulness and refectivity, mellowness and musically it is generally related to the minor chords

> minor chords can be bright - this is a different concept

, is yin in nature and seems to be amplified by a focus on the decay of notes which is a feature of even order harmonics and is restive, in some ways a moving towards the end of things and the stillness.

I figure that as subjective terms the best way to identify if a system is experienced as dark or as warm is that over time it leads us feel more often one of these dualistic experiences.

A friend has a wonderful full range Tune Anima horn system powered by 300b SET amps and it just goes with the flow of the music and leads to a beautifully dark deep connection with the music.

I was lucky enough to have that system here for a couple of months. It taught me about qualities that were missing in the balance with my upstairs system with its 20.7 Maggies that are capable of considerable brilliance and being tuneful by tending towards an active and athletic presentation but the way I had it set up it was expressing the leading edge just marginally over the flow and decay. The ribbons system brought presence and breathed aliveness into the music but the ease and flow of the tune animas system was the other side of the coin.

> yes - this all makes sense having heard both these speakers

In the end it just lead me to adapting and making some changes that just relaxed the brilliance just a shade and centred the balance back towards an earthier more tonally centred middle ground.

Im sure you know the struggle to express what we experience and relate it to the technology that allows us to experience it.

This is what perhaps makes this pursuit such a challenge, it is as much art as it is applied science.

Please see comments above.

 

[morricab]

I guess you could argue that being that essentially you are talking about a system that is disproportionately downward sloped (left to right on a plot) in its frequency response. Disproportionate being the important word and more so than that in the studio where the recording was captured.

It usually has nothing to do with FR. Two pieces of gear can sound very different this way with essentially identical FR response.

 

[Audiophile Bill]

It usually has nothing to do with FR. Two pieces of gear can sound very different this way with essentially identical FR response.

I am not talking about the gear frequency response but the frequency response at the listening position. This is very easily demonstrated with a cheap EQ.

 

[Audiophile Bill]

This is quite a useful schematic:

 

[the sound of Tao]

Hi Bill,
I probably am needing to explain better but I do struggle with the abstract and putting this into words is always a challenge. It's much easier for me if I just keep to yin and yang as expressing darkness and lightness within a system but that doesn't work for everyone.

The associations with music was more a way of connecting and associating how the experience of dark and light feels in music as well to get a better sense of the idea. I had noticed having both systems at home for a while how the darker system lead me to and was more comfortable playing darker feeling music and vice versa with the lighter balanced system and playing more lit music.

I'm sure I haven't got it all thunk through but I love threads like this because as a life long learner they make you explore ideas even if you haven't got it all worked out.

 

[Audiophile Bill]

Hi Bill,
I probably am needing to explain better but I do struggle with the abstract and putting this into words is always a challenge. It's much easier for me if I just keep to yin and yang as expressing darkness and lightness within a system but that doesn't work for everyone.

The associations with music was more a way of connecting and associating how the experience of dark and light feels in music as well to get a better sense of the idea. I had noticed having both systems at home for a while how the darker system lead me to and was more comfortable playing darker feeling music and vice versa with the lighter balanced system and playing more lit music.

I'm sure I haven't got it all thunk through but I love threads like this because as a life long learner they make you explore ideas even if you haven't got it all worked out.

Not sure whether you are into computer audio much. I spent a long time experimenting with Acourate and other DRC software. Experimenting with target curves is extremely illuminating. You can take a system from bright and fatiguing with up front soundstage to warm with deep soundstaging just changing the target curve. You literally would not think it could be the same system at all in any way.

 

[the sound of Tao]

Not sure whether you are into computer audio much. I spent a long time experimenting with Acourate and other DRC software. Experimenting with target curves is extremely illuminating. You can take a system from bright and fatiguing with up front soundstage to warm with deep soundstaging just changing the target curve. You literally would not think it could be the same system at all in any way.

I have to admit I am a touch old school and still enjoy struggling with the room and the mechanics of the system tho I definitely admire those who have struggled with the demon pc and have their heads around DRC.

I do find musicians helpful in setting system balance. I used Chick Correa as one of my benchmarks in getting the top end right in system balancing. I find his music and recordings can be dazzling and brilliant and he certainly drives the right hand of that keyboard in ways that are scary at times but if the system is fatiguing then an evening of Chick Correa can bring it on.

Same thing at the other end of the scale of light and shade with Shostakovich... If it's too dark, it's way too dark.

 

[NorthStar]

My turn (my own audio term "transactions"):

- Dark: Black, Widow, Shadow, Underground, Satanic, Diabolic, Missing light, Atmospheric, Ambiance, Obscurity. ? Heavy Metal, Rock, RAP, Psychedelic, ...
- Analytical: Clinical, Antiseptic, Light green, Cerebral, Biology, Chemistry, Razor sharp visceral, Outbound. ? Alternative, Fusion, Electronica, New Age, ...
- Bright: Strident, Irritant, Blinding, Unbalanced, White light. ? Pop, Country, Heavy rock, Punk, Funk, Iggy Pop, Judas Priest, Sex Pistols, Hole, Nirvana, ...
- Warm: Cool, Jazzy, Easy, Smooth, Comfy, Relaxing, Mature, Caramel, Pastel, Blue. ? Jazz, Blues, Folk, Chamber, Opera, Organ, Choral, Classical, Orchestral.
- Open: Humor, Gold, Silver, Universal, Rainbow, Multicolored. ? World, International, Foreign, Exotic, Tango, Bossa Nova, Calypso, Reggae, Accordion, Drums.

 

[es347]

My turn (my own audio term "transactions"):

- Dark: Black, Widow, Shadow, Underground, Satanic, Diabolic, Missing light, Atmospheric, Ambiance, Obscurity. ? Heavy Metal, Rock, RAP, Psychedelic, ...
- Analytical: Clinical, Antiseptic, Light green, Cerebral, Biology, Chemistry, Razor sharp visceral, Outbound. ? Alternative, Fusion, Electronica, New Age, ...
- Bright: Strident, Irritant, Blinding, Unbalanced, White light. ? Pop, Country, Heavy rock, Punk, Funk, Iggy Pop, Judas Priest, Sex Pistols, Hole, Nirvana, ...
- Warm: Cool, Jazzy, Easy, Smooth, Comfy, Relaxing, Mature, Caramel, Pastel, Blue. ? Jazz, Blues, Folk, Chamber, Opera, Organ, Choral, Classical, Orchestral.
- Open: Humor, Gold, Silver, Universal, Rainbow, Multicolored. ? World, International, Foreign, Exotic, Tango, Bossa Nova, Calypso, Reggae, Accordion, Drums.

..oh my

 

[DaveyF]

Bob, I appreciate your thoughts on the music...but I think this thread is more about the descriptors that we use for the sound that we hear from our gear/systems. And the meaning of same.

Bill, thanks for posting that schematic...I found that quite interesting.

 

[NorthStar]

Sorry Dave, I ventured in the audio jargon humor side.

I think many audio reviewers are using their own words to describe what they heard. This is a hobby where words and sounds collided as often as new audio products are released.
Writing audio product reviews is as popular as saying that a music recording sounds veiled and cloudy or open and translucent and all in between.
And with the audio evolution and sound improvement new words made their apparition, and some of them normally used to describe ice cream flavors and planet's colors and atmospheric gases.

"Dark" in audio jargon is totally a different meaning for an old audiophile say from the 40s-50s and a newer one from the 90s-00s.
Should we teach our audiophile children (iTunes) the old audiophile audio jargon language? Or should we concentrate in better quality music and genre?

"Warm" is usually associated with tubes and analog, without edginess, and full blossoming/blooming from 30Hz to 500Hz (roughly).

"Bright" is for an emphasis on the treble.

"Analytical" is listening to minutiae details...micro dynamics, microphone positioning during the recording, hall ambiance.

"Presence" is real life performance in the room, like the musicians are right there, in the room center stage up front and clear.

* There must be other threads when we discussed those attributes (audio words) here @ WBF in a not so distant past; I know for certain that there are.

One thing that is very particular to all of us here on this site; we analyse in depth each audio subject of interest with intense passion.
I wouldn't be able to imagine any other way. Audiophiles are also wordphiles; they not only listen to music with love, interest, improvement...but also talk about it with a similar emotional intensity. It's human nature to reconstitute the musical event in our rooms and through our words. Only the high sky's the limit.

Anyway, some music through our systems does that to us. It enraptures us in ways that words become a new language of enchantement (magic), and other darker euphemisms and romanticism and words that describe audio properties nearer to human emotions, human dreams and aspirations. ...But all in the present moment, except for when it is typed on our screens from our keyboards after the fact.

Short of having the sound being communicated to us as the audio reviewer hears it in the moment...he's using his own words, and pictures, and youtube videos.

Yes, I remember reading J. Gordon Holt's audio glossary ? http://www.stereophile.com/reference/50/index.html
• http://www.stereophile.com/reference/23/#xjYjGP71zxB7Zee6.97
• http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...iophile-vernacular&highlight=audio+vernacular

And more threads about micro and macro dynamics, transparency, black background, musicality, colored sound, opacity, palpability, homogeneity, holography, brightness, warmness, analytic, etc.

In your thread's title you enumerated four of those words and you added four dots....meaning that there is a bunch more words/terms with meanings to describe the sounds, the music, the overall character of audio products and loudspeakers and including audio cable interconnects and speaker wires and AC power chords and black magic boxes and steel triangles, the wall's reflections, the compression and dynamic expansion of the music recordings, the effects used from the console, the reverbs, the delays, the sustains, ...

 

[morricab]

I am not talking about the gear frequency response but the frequency response at the listening position. This is very easily demonstrated with a cheap EQ.

Whether gear has a dark or bright or warm or cold sound has nothing to do with FR per se but a combination of the kind of distortion produced and dynamic limitations in certain frequency bands. It is assumed that a piece of gear with a flat FR will sound neutral but time and again we hear them not sound neutral despite measured response. Harmonic distortions and dynamic constrictions shift perceived balance. HP was one of first high end writers to note these observations...

 

[Ron Resnick]

http://integracoustics.com/MUG/MUG/bbs/stereophile_audio-glossary.html

I read many of J. Gordon Holt's definitions, a Stereophile link to which was kindly first posted by Frank. I found the link above where the glossary is in one file and easier to read.

Most, if not all, of Holt's definitions are really very good. Each of us could (and would) quibble about certain words or parts of some of the definitions but, overall, I think he did a really good job.

Does it makes sense to try to re-invent the wheel? Doesn't it make sense to try to adopt these existing definitions or use them, at least, as a starting point?

From now on I will try to refer to this glossary before making up my own definitions of words.

 

[Audiophile Bill]

Whether gear has a dark or bright or warm or cold sound has nothing to do with FR per se but a combination of the kind of distortion produced and dynamic limitations in certain frequency bands. It is assumed that a piece of gear with a flat FR will sound neutral but time and again we hear them not sound neutral despite measured response. Harmonic distortions and dynamic constrictions shift perceived balance. HP was one of first high end writers to note these observations...

As I said in the previous post, I am talking about the measured frequency response at the listening position and yes it is *very, very* much linked to frequency response more so than any other parameters. We will simply have to disagree on this due to the reason below:

>> Bring or name me any piece of what you think is warm or cold gear by your definition and I am 100% certain I can make it sound the opposite way by EQ alone.

>> "Dynamic limitation" is *completely* confounded by the partnering gear.

 

[morricab]

As I said in the previous post, I am talking about the measured frequency response at the listening position and yes it is *very, very* much linked to frequency response more so than any other parameters. We will simply have to disagree on this due to the reason below:

>> Bring or name me any piece of what you think is warm or cold gear by your definition and I am 100% certain I can make it sound the opposite way by EQ alone.

>> "Dynamic limitation" is *completely* confounded by the partnering gear.

Well of course you can completely manipulate the frequeny response and get a different sound...no one doubts this. Equalization cannot correct for the inherent signature of a product that is caused by its distortion products, both linear and non-linear.

The question is more relevant for two products (amps, preamp, dacs) that measure essentially flat from well below hearing to well above hearing and they sound completely different, one dark and warm and the other lean and bright?? In this , not so uncommon example, the two products have very small linear distortions (FR, phase shift) but have clearly identiable characters nonetheless. We have all heard situations like this and it has nothing to do with the FR, which is deviating by mere fractions of a db (for SS amps anyway and not much more for tube amps into an easy load).

Dynamic limitation of a certain frequency range within a given piece of gear is not completely confounded by partnering gear. Critical listening with that piece of gear in comparison to others and other partners can reveal where and to what extent the DUT is constricted and in what range(s), if any.

 

[Audiophile Bill]

Well of course you can completely manipulate the frequeny response and get a different sound...no one doubts this. Equalization cannot correct for the inherent signature of a product that is caused by its distortion products, both linear and non-linear.

The question is more relevant for two products (amps, preamp, dacs) that measure essentially flat from well below hearing to well above hearing and they sound completely different, one dark and warm and the other lean and bright?? In this , not so uncommon example, the two products have very small linear distortions (FR, phase shift) but have clearly identiable characters nonetheless. We have all heard situations like this and it has nothing to do with the FR, which is deviating by mere fractions of a db (for SS amps anyway and not much more for tube amps into an easy load).

Dynamic limitation of a certain frequency range within a given piece of gear is not completely confounded by partnering gear. Critical listening with that piece of gear in comparison to others and other partners can reveal where and to what extent the DUT is constricted and in what range(s), if any.

Thanks for this - I agree.

 

[DaveC]

in my experience the most clear view of 'dark' and 'light' was when I switched from Transparent Opus MM2 speaker cables to Evolution Acoustics TRSC (triple run speaker cables).

I loved the Opus MM2. however; it was educational how much more open and airy the EA was. the Opus MM2 in direct comparison lacked top end air and the tonal pallet was shaded. and this was simply what I perceived in my system. i'm not assigning 'dark' to the Opus MM2 in all contexts.

I interpret 'dark' as 'lack of light' or 'reduced light'......not added tonal weight. I lost no mid range weight or tonal harmonics with the EA.

are some cables 'tone controls'? that's a different question.

Lol, that's because transparent's network rolls off the top end. So in this case, it's literally a tone control.

 

[DaveyF]

Lol, that's because transparent's network rolls off the top end. So in this case, it's literally a tone control.

Dave do you think the MIT networks also roll off the top end?
Ron, do you think that given the amount of time..and increase in the SQ due to the technology in use today, that Holt's descriptions are still as valid? I would think ( hope) that we have advanced quite a bit in the hobby, so much so that the descriptors may be less applicable today and that new one's may be warranted.

 

[Ron Resnick]

. . .
Ron, do you think that given the amount of time..and increase in the SQ due to the technology in use today, that Holt's descriptions are still as valid? I would think ( hope) that we have advanced quite a bit in the hobby, so much so that the descriptors may be less applicable today and that new one's may be warranted.

That is an excellent threshold question!

The glossary was published in 1993, so it is not like it pre-dates the advent of magnetic recording tape or something. I bet that audiophiles were discussing all these same issues in 1993, in substantially the same ways, as we are today.

I have read most of the Holt definitions and I, personally, find them good and thoughtful and accurate today. I think we can avoid a lot of spilled ink (ah, wasted electrons, I guess) if, going forward, we try to start with, and work off of, Holt's definitions.

Are there particular definitions in his list which you feel have become stale with the improvement over time in overall sound quality?