I've got about 200 hours on my new Oticas and two of Danny's dual OB servo sub towers. I'm currently driving the Oticas with a pair of B&K 200.1 monoblocks (class A pre-driver and AB high current MOSFET power output stages). My preamp is a McIntosh C2300 with two NOS 1959 Holland made 12ax7's driving tone and output. My DAC is a PS Audio Perfectwave II and my source is a MacBook Pro interfaced with Audirvana and Quboz. All power is conditioned through a Furman Elite 20. Speaker cables are Danny's 24 strand. My room is well treated with acoustic panels on the ceiling and placed along some walls. I have PI Audio "Mr. T" diffusers as well and floor-to-ceiling bass traps in the back wall corners.
I was introduced to B&K years ago for my HT setup and decided on the monoblocks for music when I got a pair of Snell AIII's. The AIII's need lots of power to sing. (The HT 11.2 Atmos set up is still all Snell except for the ceiling speakers). The B&K's are very neutral with excellent clarity and detail without losing musicality. I've enjoyed the pairing for years. When small refrigerators like the AIII's disappear in the room and the sound stage extends beyond the walls...you know something is working.
With the B&K's, the Oticas throw a huge soundstage, filling the entire end of the room floor to ceiling. They're place over 8.5' from the front wall and 4.5' from the side walls of a 16'W X 31' L X 9' H room. The stage is deep, very deep from the speakers themselves but front to back separation is pretty bunched up. Left and right separation is excellent and often amazing. The often heard comment of Oticas/Xtremes revealing every detail of a recording is spot on and, as also forewarned, be prepared to have some of your favorite recordings sound disappointingly lacking. Without doubt, the GR Research NX-series speakers perform sonic dissection of a recording. Indeed, the only complaint I have at the moment is that the sound is a little too analytical and bright. I'm also getting a little high end resonance and distortion so I've ordered acoustic curtains to cover the entire front wall - like Danny's room. I know the Oticas will smooth out more with time but I don't think the B&K's will get the Oticas to what I want.
So, as part of my Otica OB journey, I'm looking to try a tube integrated to take advantage of the the Otica's sensitivity and the "tube sound" to help soften the analytics some. Since I've had no experience with tube amps, I'm thinking of starting with something like the Willsenton R8 since it gives such an opportunity for a great variety of tube experiences and the price is right for putting a toe into the tube waters (I'm using the C2300 1 and 2 outputs to drive the servo subs). Any thoughts fellow GR Research AC fans for slightly smoothing a pair of Oticas?
BTW, I know there's lots of great things about this forum but gleaning existing information from this rat's nest of a database is often pretty useless. The search feature is grossly inefficient and there's no updating whatsoever. So, sorry for needing to ask a question that may have been already asked a hundred times before...
Thanks! OB is amazing!
