Funny how some people like their equipment to mask bad sound and recordings to a degree, for it to be enjoyable. And others prefer what's commonly called "revealing" equipment. I'm decidedly the latter, and guess what, I can still enjoy crap sound - it's actually hilarious and a lot of fun being able to hear how exactly and in what way it is crappy. Highly entertaining and fun to listen. Especially if the music itself rocks, see my recent post in the metal thread.For the last 10+ years in my music room I've always run Active speakers for this exact reason, crap in, crap out. No issues with that. If I want to 'tune' the sound I do that it software where I can control it perfectly. The concept of a 'warm' amp ect, nah, I don't get that. I want something to amplify what ever I put is as-is.
In some speakers ( or Subs ) I've got Hypex, some Pascal. They all run cool they can all get cranked up. And when I'm driving these ( current ) speakers via £10 AES cables over 20m, it's digital, no signal loss. Sounds great. ( Dynaudio Core Series Speakers & 'Core Sub' ).
As for "warmth" - as an old friend and fellow hobby producer once put it: "warm means muffled".