[spykez]

 

Tubes are warm. Because they glow. Checks out.

Hehe warm to the touch. It's like staring at a campfire, by the end of the night your head feels all warm and your brain feels like mush (or maybe I was inhaling smoke)

Asgard 2 sounds warmer than the Vali. I don't know it it was a bad match or what but I didn't like the Vali at all and thought the Asgard 2 swept the floor with it

I think the Asgard 2 is just amazing lol, there's no other way to explain it. It kicks the socks off of the Little Dot MKIII I had out of the box.

 

[Sonic Defender]

  I'm 39, almost 40.  Been into vinyl since I was 17.
 
And to say tubes are warm as generic description is BS also.

Well then based on your experience I will have to admit that I'm surprised you don't feel there isn't any validity at all. I'm fine with people saying maybe the idea is overblown, or somewhat exaggerated, but it seems that you are suggesting there is zero validity to the idea that vinyl can sound warmer. Similarly to the notion that tubes can sound warmer. I have been quite forthcoming admitting that my original post on the topic was indeed too generalized to be very useful, and I do regret being so rash in that respect. It now seems you may be making the same mistake going the other way. Anyway, we will agree to disagree somewhat, and I do not want to derail the thread further so I will hush up. Thanks for the dialogue, no hard feelings there brother. 

 

[Eee Pee]

No hard feelings here either.  I read it all too often and have the means to disprove the generalization.  In other words, I can make my vinyl sound bright, and I can make my tube amps bright, too.  Just a strange generalization that I don't like, I guess.

 

[Billheiser]

  And on the subject of warm here is an explanation from a recording engineer who likes to call vinyl warm sounding.
 
“If I have a wire that’s one-inch long, it takes no time for sound to travel over that wire. But in the coil in a turntable cartridge, that wire is very long and it’s wrapped around a magnet. So it takes a lot of time to get through that magnet and come out the other side. By the time it comes out, the sharpness, the ugliness has been rounded.

“That,” says Moore, “is what people mean by warm.”
 
Obviously this is one persons opinion, for what it is worth to you, you can read the article here. http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/music/2014/01/31/the_rise_of_vinyl_and_why_records_sound_warm.html

OMG, he may be a great recordist, but he has a ridiculous non-understanding of electricity and sound wave propagation.

 

[Sonic Defender]

 
OMG, he may be a great recordist, but he has a ridiculous non-understanding of electricity and sound wave propagation.

I wish I was technically competent to make that determination, sadly I am not well enough versed to know if you are wrong, or he is! Ultimately it doesn't matter does it? Regardless of what this or that expert believes, the truth is sadly subjectively judged in each of our brains so all I can say is I very much enjoy music and this hobby, and even if Moore is way off base, like Sheldon, even though he made a mistake, his answer was right as far as my brain can tell. The few times I enjoy vinyl listening at my brothers place, if it is a trick or not, I still feel a warmth to what I hear. Expectation bias? Quite possibly, but I'll never know will I?

 

[ejwiles]

 
I wish I was technically competent to make that determination, sadly I am not well enough versed to know if you are wrong, or he is! Ultimately it doesn't matter does it? Regardless of what this or that expert believes, the truth is sadly subjectively judged in each of our brains so all I can say is I very much enjoy music and this hobby, and even if Moore is way off base, like Sheldon, even though he made a mistake, his answer was right as far as my brain can tell. The few times I enjoy vinyl listening at my brothers place, if it is a trick or not, I still feel a warmth to what I hear. Expectation bias? Quite possibly, but I'll never know will I?

 
Don't back down, I'm with you.  Whether it's something an engineer can measure, all in your head, or friction from the spinning platter warming the air in the room, I get a warm and fuzzy feeling from vinyl.  My main rig is digital, and that's where I do 90% of my listening.  I don't find it dry or clinical at all, I love it and it's easy.  There is, however, something to be said for putting on a record and simply listening - not skipping songs or surfing the internet, or posting on head-fi, but just listening.  Call it warm or whatever you want.  Your state of mind affects what you hear more than any DAC or tube ever could.

 

[Billheiser]

 
I wish I was technically competent to make that determination, sadly I am not well enough versed to know if you are wrong, or he is! Ultimately it doesn't matter does it? Regardless of what this or that expert believes, the truth is sadly subjectively judged in each of our brains so all I can say is I very much enjoy music and this hobby, and even if Moore is way off base, like Sheldon, even though he made a mistake, his answer was right as far as my brain can tell. The few times I enjoy vinyl listening at my brothers place, if it is a trick or not, I still feel a warmth to what I hear. Expectation bias? Quite possibly, but I'll never know will I?

He's confused and making up stuff.  The time it takes for electrons to move through a wire has nothing to do warmth in a stereo system.  I dig my vinyl too and I like good warmth in sound, it's just that his "explanation" has nothing to do with it.

 

[UmustBKidn]

  I'm also curious about the vinyl experience from those here saying that the notion of warmth is incorrect. I don't mean this in a nasty way, but are any of you old enough to have actually spent hundreds of hours listening to vinyl back in the 80s and 90s? If not that might have something to do with our perception difference. It might be reasonable to assume that todays gear is less warm than the vintage solid state gear I grew up with. Perhaps not, I'm just speculating.

 
*cough* Yes. I was listening to vinyl in the 70's. Back then we just called them "Records." But that was a new idea, vinyl. I also owned an 8-track, and lots of cassette decks and tapes. I stored the first computer programs I wrote, created on a Radio Shack TRS-80, on a cassette tape deck.
 
When I got divorced, my ex wife made off with a whole pile of our cassette collection. Once a car of mine was stolen, and when I got what was left of it back, the 8 track deck was one thing they kept.
 
And when I was a kid, I used to record the Beatles onto a small reel-to-reel tape deck, using an AM radio as the source. I even sang along with them. Go figure.
 
We didn't so much discuss warmth back then, as how to make records last, and how to get rid of the pop and click noise that would plague us after listening to those records for a while. In retrospect, I really wish we had found a way to protect records from physical wear. I'd love to have some of those old records back, that are irreplaceable.
 
I would suppose that we're now discussing warmth, because we have audio gear that is so much more capable of reproducing accurate sound, than anything the average person had, 40-some years ago. Compared to the uber-accuracy of today, it might just be considered a kindness, to describe music of that era as "warm". Personally, I think the SQ of recordings 40-odd years old really suck, compared to today. Just listen to some old original Led Zeppelin, then compare it to Celebration Day. 'Nuff said.

 

[StanD]

  Magni is brighter while the Vali sounds smoother. 

 
 

  I see you have a Magni, but to you own a Vali?

 
 

  Heard one though.

That's not the same as a side by side comparison. Our memory of audio details is brief and not sutiable for comparisons over time.

 

[BeatsWork]

Don't back down, I'm with you.  Whether it's something an engineer can measure, all in your head, or friction from the spinning platter warming the air in the room, I get a warm and fuzzy feeling from vinyl.  My main rig is digital, and that's where I do 90% of my listening.  I don't find it dry or clinical at all, I love it and it's easy.  There is, however, something to be said for putting on a record and simply listening - not skipping songs or surfing the internet, or posting on head-fi, but just listening.  Call it warm or whatever you want.  Your state of mind affects what you hear more than any DAC or tube ever could.

It would be much simpler if we would admit that for many it's not "just the sound waves being produced" - it's the total experience. For some softly glowing tubes or a tangible spinning disc of vinyl is in and of itself aesthetically pleasing and if that alters your experience in a positive way that's all that really matters.

 

[Tuco1965]

I have a lot of vinyl in storage along with a couple tables.  Warm is not a word that comes to mind when I think of them though.  It was a different experience for sure.  Lots of work cleaning records, static guns, along with cartridge swapping and aligning that comes with that.  Without setting one up again and finding same for same recordings ie vinyl vs digital, I can't make an absolute comparison.  Auditory memory is short.  It doesn't really matter too much to me because I really enjoy my digital rigs.  Some day for schiits and giggles I might set one up, but I'm not rushing out to do it.

 

[Sonic Defender]

   
Don't back down, I'm with you.  Whether it's something an engineer can measure, all in your head, or friction from the spinning platter warming the air in the room, I get a warm and fuzzy feeling from vinyl.  My main rig is digital, and that's where I do 90% of my listening.  I don't find it dry or clinical at all, I love it and it's easy.  There is, however, something to be said for putting on a record and simply listening - not skipping songs or surfing the internet, or posting on head-fi, but just listening.  Call it warm or whatever you want.  Your state of mind affects what you hear more than any DAC or tube ever could.

Thanks brother, I was out here in the wilderness!

 

[Wildcatsare1]

 
Thanks brother, I was out here in the wilderness!

OK, have been away from this Thread too long. Of course you are absolutely correct about the sonic advantages of vinyl over digital. How effective are engineers at measuring the presentation of musics "soul", the gestalt of what the artist intended. They just need to read Neil Young's thoughts on digital versus analogue/vinyl. Digital is for convenience, people are spending thousands and now hundreds of thousands in the vain attempt to get their digital rigs to sound as good as their vinyl ones.
 
Keep fighting the good fight, Bro!

 

[RRod]

 
OK, have been away from this Thread too long. Of course you are absolutely correct about the sonic advantages of vinyl over digital. How effective are engineers at measuring the presentation of musics "soul", the gestalt of what the artist intended. They just need to read Neil Young's thoughts on digital versus analogue/vinyl. Digital is for convenience, people are spending thousands and now hundreds of thousands in the vain attempt to get their digital rigs to sound as good as their vinyl ones.
 
Keep fighting the good fight, Bro!

 
Actually we're not. I can spend a few hundred bucks and get all the DAC and amp I'd ever need for digital and not worry about any equipment maintenance, then spend the money where it counts on transducers. I mean, cmon, you're on a thread dedicated to a company that puts out exactly the kind of high quality, low-priced gear that destroys this "expensive digital" myth.

 

[StanD]

 
OK, have been away from this Thread too long. Of course you are absolutely correct about the sonic advantages of vinyl over digital. How effective are engineers at measuring the presentation of musics "soul", the gestalt of what the artist intended. They just need to read Neil Young's thoughts on digital versus analogue/vinyl. Digital is for convenience, people are spending thousands and now hundreds of thousands in the vain attempt to get their digital rigs to sound as good as their vinyl ones.
 
Keep fighting the good fight, Bro!

One might ask how effective are different people at measuring/quantifying what they hear and not be subject to suggestion and/or the social aspects of posting? One doesn't have to spend a ton of money to exceed the human thresholds of perception, unless they want to. Do what makes you happy.