I've been trolling around this thread for a few weeks now freeloading on the wisdom, hard-won through blood and sweat (and cash) of others, so I figured it was time to contribute for a change
I have a Modwright TP used with an Oritek-modded Zhaolu combo dac/preamp, fed into a Spectron Musician III mk 2 amp (too poor for the monoblocks yet), then on to Piega P10 speakers. The Oritek dac/pre was my reference, but the Modwright with stock tubes gave it a run for its money...still, I sometimes preferred the bass control, imaging, and treble extension of the Oritek unit (see below for my use of ext word clock with this). I'm still using a cheap Raytheon 5u4gb (waiting for the EML to get back in stock), but just got a pair of the Treasures over the weekend. Here's my brief impressions:
Out of the shipping package they sounded fantastic, light-years better than stock Russian tubes for sure, but quite a bit better also than the Ken-Rads which I had borrowed from someone (but had to return a couple of days prior much to my sadness...they were great-sounding tubes). Initial impression was very similar to what AB has described previously; beautiful 3D imaging, refined highs, lots and lots of details but not at all etched or analytic sounding, very dynamic (though maybe a hair less than I recall the Ken-Rads sounding). Really seemed to combine the best of "tube magic" and solid-state precision/bottom end tautness. Upright bass had more texture and less boom obscuring said texture. Very nice!
Within a few hours (maybe 10 or so) they lost a lot of the magic and got much more dry-sounding...actually sounded a lot closer to the solid-state Oritek DAC (really remarkable...I can AB them instantly with a click of the remote so I'm pretty convinced that the two DACs sounded very similar at this stage, whereas out of the box the Modwright with Treasures really stood out as superior in every parameter...bloom, air, microdynamics, tonal balance). Ugh, time for more burn in.
Currently I'm at about 60 hours and they're opening up again. Even more detail everywhere, but especially in the midrange. Bass extension has improved. Some of the soundstage and upper frequency magic has returned. Macrodynamics are still a bit muted though.
I anticipate these will continue to open up and I'm extremely impressed and grateful to those on the thread who pioneered the use of these.
Can't wait to hear what the EML will add!