Had a couple of audio guru's over the other day. They were not pleased with the highs. After some equipment swapping the system sounded good. I swapped the Torii back in with some different input tubes which they seemed to like well enough. That was that.
I listened further the next night and had to abandon the changes I most of my music to simply to abrasive to listen to. Back went in the 6N1P's.
Tonight my wife and I and Dad too sat down for a listen. The wife was not pleased.

Something is missing. Not even close to the LS6's as she was listening to her favorite cuts of Chris Spheris. "You need to build the LS9's"

Sheesh, she's worse than your typical audiophile. But I conceded, they weren't sounding to the level of the LS6's, they can't, they are not line arrays, they are open baffle hybrids. So back went in the 7DJ8 input tubes which I wasn't keen on - too harsh for my tastes, open yes, strident yes. She liked it better but still was not happy.

Out went the EL34 Treasures and in went the EL34 Mesa Boogies. Now we were cooking

The music opened up, instruments took there own space and space went deeper. More instruments emerged which were hidden before. The wife was loving what she was hearing. "See" she told me, "This is what I like". So I went back to some cuts I played earlier and no doubt, layers of for lack of better term, noise, were gone. I still noted some stridency. Still a little hot on top., but I think even the audio guru's would have appreciated the tube changes and the sound of the Super V's. I ordered some input tubes, 6922's, which should land in the transparent category with a bit more sweetness on top. I'm only at 275 hours on the caps so they're still breaking in. I'm hopeful that they will have matured before the getogether.
It's been an interesting ride, perhaps more so with the electronics and the interaction of gear mated with the V's. The V's seem to play well with most gear. I haven't really heard a bad setup other than perhaps a hybrid amp early on but that was "early on". These are sensitive speakers. Every change is felt.
I'm with hope I'm not building a set of LS9's.
