Looking for the next level in imaging...

Increasing detail and resolution will improve imaging.  Increased detail provides better imaging cues, more air around images.  An effective way to improve detail and resolution is to isolate the speakers and components.  The best way to isolate is by using springs.  

For decades my speakers sat on spikes.  I knew spikes improved the sound over the speakers resting directly on the floor.  Then a few years back I got the idea to build some spring platforms for my speakers.  The improvement in sound and detail blew me away.  Eventually I bought the Isoacoustic footers.  They sounded a bit better than my self made spring platforms and were also much easier to use.  Wrestling 130 lb speakers onto my self made spring platforms was a bit tricky.  I use Isoacoustic footers on my current 238 lb speakers and they are clearly superior to the factory supplied spikes.  The subwoofers in my HT setup now use my self made spring platforms and they sound great.  Having the subs isolated from the floor eliminates all muddiness in the bass.

With that success I tried isolating my components with springs.  I found that it is better to isolate the shelves with the springs vs. putting the components directly on the springs.  Isolate the shelves and then place the components on those shelves and use your damping of choice between the component and shelf.  The ideal isolation is to have the shelf/component combo resonate at around 3 Hz.  That can be difficult to achieve sitting on compression springs; but I find that below 7 Hz works very well.  I have thought about building shelves that hang on extension springs.  It would be much easier to achieve 3 Hz but my system sounds so good right now I have no motivation to tinker any further.  Maybe later, perhaps.  Although I have already seen a couple of examples of racks using shelves suspended on springs.

I gained so much detail that I found it distracting at first.  It took away from the music.  I almost wanted to go back but it is like letting the genie out of the bottle.   Fortunately, in time I grew accustomed to the added detail and resolution and was back to enjoying the music even more with the improved imaging.  It's quite a thrill listening to a Chorale piece and hearing each individual voice across the sound stage vs. a cloud of voices.

All I can say is WOW!  Lots of good ideas and suggestions to work through.  It's why I love these forums!  So much to think about before you make a decision!.  I will say this -  the most intriguing idea (and I forget which responder/poster said it) that you can't reproduce what isn't there. Helluva observation! However, I thought  that's why Dolby Atmos and Sony 360 were brought to market.  Which then made me reconsider what I'm after. Thanks for the good debate!

@mikelavigne 

Hello Mike. Thank you for your input. I think you are definitely correct about having a good balance. My point was if your room was going to be either over damped or under damped it seems like over damped is better. I  have heard rooms with little to no treatment and my room sounds better to me. My room was designed by an acoustician and all the walls and ceiling are the ‘treatments’ if you  will. There is no drywall inside the room. My room is on the small side and I think he did a great job with the design. If I had a bigger room I would no doubt approach it differently. 
 

Regards 

Ron 

My two cents,

Unless you can have your speakers at least 2.5-3 feet away from the front wall and at least 3’ from the side walls and your listening position is 5-8’ from the back wall, you are probably not going to get the best your speakers. 
My KEF Reference 5’s are three feet away from the front and side walls. They are 8 feet apart and my ears are just a touch less than 8 feet from the front of the speakers. Oh and my listening position is about 6 feet from the back wall.

All the Best.

@patrickdowns  Not to toot my own horn, but I have been doing this since 1958. 

@mikelavigne I look at it from a different perspective. I want to hear exactly what is in the recording. I do not want to hear any editorialization by the room. As far as reproduction is concerned, everything is important. Detail, dynamics, bass, and imaging. Bass and imaging are definitely the hardest to get right. Some systems are even hyper detailed, audiophiles tend to love this. If there is a question of balance it is with volume. Every recording  has a correct volume, a volume at which it sounds best. This is because our ear's frequency response changes with volume. Funkadelic recordings sound like crap if you listen to them at casual volumes, but turn them up on a system with great bass and magic occurs. Listen to a string quartet at that volume and the violins will cut your throat. Joni Mitchell albums generally sound best at intermediate volumes. Much of this has to do with the volume the music was mixed at. Early Zappa records sounded compressed and muffled with poor bass. They were mixed at crazy high volumes on less than stellar equipment. You really had to crank them to get the most out of them. The re-releases were mixed on modern equipment at moderate levels and the difference is a major improvement. 

I might also add that like my room, your was expressly designed for music reproduction making it much easier to achieve decent control. I only had to add absorption directly behind the speakers.