Raul,
I am not telling you anything you don't already know. Often musicians make terrible audiophiles. For one thing, sitting in section frequently results in hearing loss. I was a drummer. Drums are loud. What saved me was I always used ear plugs. So, my hearing is pretty good for a 78 year old man. I just had it tested a couple of months ago in fact and it is pretty flat up to 12 kHz and down to about 25 Hz. The doctor repeated the tests twice because he couldn't believe a man my age could hear that well. Besides the drummer thing, I became an engineer and was exposed to loud noise for decades. Good genes and ear plugs, which I used fastidiously account for this I believe.
Anyway, back to your claim of no such thing as warm in the front row. Well, we all hear differently. Let me explain myself like this. If I use calf skin heads on my drums, the tone is warmer than if I use Mylar heads. You might not hear that difference in the front row, I don't know. If you have any records with Mel Lewis on drums, you can hear a good drummer playing on calf skin heads. For comparison, listen to Joe Morello, a good drummer who always preferred mylar heads. I can hear these differences. Can you?
For another example, as a drummer who played a lot of duo/trio with piano, I have always been sensitive to the tonality of different pianos. There are a lot of examples of Steinways, which is a neutral sounding instrument. Yamaha pianos are too. By contrast, listen to Oscar Peterson, who in his last years played a Bosendorfer. His piano had a warmer tonality. It also had an extra set of notes on the left side so it went deeper than a standard piano. If you have any of his recordings entitled "Exclusively For My Friends" you can hear him playing a Bosendorfer. I hope you can find some of these examples among your own record collection. You might then hear the tonality that I am referring to as warmer.
With respect to my description of the difference between my Technics SL1200GAE and my Denon DP-3000NE, there is a definite distinction in the sound of the two. Using identical cartridges (AT ART20, and AT LM60xSL), identical head shells (I have tried both the Denon and the Technics), identical phono leads, identical phono stage (PS Audio Stella). No SUT. I even used the same mat (I tried three: OEM Denon, OEM Technics, and Origin Stratos). For analytical detail, the Technics is better, but for just listening for relaxation, the Denon has a softer, warmer sound that I prefer, especially for Baroque and Early Music in general. Using AnalogMagik, the measurable difference between the two such as speed, wow & flutter and so forth are negligible. All of this I find more than a little surprising.