Warmth and spatial representation: Mutually exclusive?

[Ricky64]

My system is sounding pretty good....See the components in my signature. I suspect they are all "tuned" in the same respect...I am getting incredible imaging, depth, mid midrange tonality, not bright. Lower bass is controlled and excellent.
Compared to an older system, which was less sophisticated and exaggerated and loose in bass and with a low midrange emphasis, I miss some chesty weight to middle piano, tenor sax, etc. Also, many older rock recordings come off thin and a bit too "fast".
Using Roon, I can add a bump around 125 to 150Hz. With this, I get some fill in to those frequencies that adds some weight, but the phenomenal imaging disappears.
So, a few questions at play;
-It could be that the Roon DSP is degrading overall sound quality
-Or, is there something about the lower midrange and upper bass frequencies that interfere with spatial representation/cues?

I do believe my Grimm/Mola Mola/Gryphon is pretty exceptional in imaging at its baseline without being bright..
The question is, does warmth and weight typically interfere with the highest level of imaging?
Thanks

 

[NekoAudio]

Using Roon, I can add a bump around 125 to 150Hz. With this, I get some fill in to those frequencies that adds some weight, but the phenomenal imaging disappears.
So, a few questions at play;
-It could be that the Roon DSP is degrading overall sound quality
-Or, is there something about the lower midrange and upper bass frequencies that interfere with spatial representation/cues?

I would doubt that the PEQ boost you've given to 125Hz - 150Hz is doing anything other than increasing the SPL of those frequencies. But spatial cues are a function of relative differences of both SPL and timing, and at different frequencies. This has been proven in lots of research—you can Google interaural time difference (ITD) and interaural level difference (ILD) plus "spatial" as a start.

So it wouldn't necessarily be surprising that some parts of the soundstage have changed for you after adding a PEQ filter.

 

[Delija]

Very interesting subject.

-It could be that the Roon DSP is degrading overall sound quality
-Or, is there something about the lower midrange and upper bass frequencies that interfere with spatial representation/cues?

Both.

Roon DSP does degrade the sound quality, but not so much in this aspect. It's more about dynamics, transparency, resolution. It also "steels" the life/energy from music. Not good.

In my system, I'm able to adjust mid and upper bass with subwoofer settings - main speakers are not affected. With the "colder" sound - soundstage depth and imaging are better. Since there must be some healthy dose of warmth in sound to be "musical" - I make some compromise.

 

[Mr Peabody]

Equalizing is maddening. Sometimes when you bump up the midbass it does sound like some of the air is gone.

We have to except the fact not all recordings are good, listen to them how they are and enjoy them. Depending on what you listen to, modern recordings, especially Rock and Pop use a lot of compression, so compared to older recordings without the compression those will sound thinner but you should notice more dynamics.

You do have a nice system, the better the playback the more you will notice flaws in bad recordings.