I performed both mods yesterday, that is, a retermination from RCA to balanced on the interconnects, then I installed the caps inside the amp at the posts, a simple procedure. Since the Torii has 2 sets of inputs, I can easily AB between the Sonicap and full range inputs. Here's what we discovered;
Separating the signal going to the plate amps and main amp was a major improvement.
I guess I should have expected that and now I'm sorry that the folks at the getogether didn't experience this nuance. That was a GAF in my part sorry about that.
The change mostly centered around the performance of the upper registers or treble region. We no longer hear a saturation that was present, just extended sweet highs. Another nuance I noted was how real sounding the finish of a vocal was. It is in the trailing notes that I was struck by how present the voice was in our room. Instruments took on even greater clarity and space within the room. Image depth improved as well. Image width did not improve. Nor did the idea that there are musicians and instruments placed in specific boundaries in the room although it seemed that the singer was well placed between the speakers very focused in fact. Image depth as well is great, just not spread from wall to wall and not forward of the plane of the speakers.
I swear the bass got better too. It's probably a placebo effect thing, since everything else sounds better, well the bass sounds better too. But listening to Porcupine Tree, I was !#*king mesmorized
I was laughing
Adding the Sonic cap inside the amp was interesting after having it sound miserable in my kludge. Without the cap all was well anyway but how does it sound with the cap in line? Smoother. Vocals are simply smoother. Without the cap it at first listen seems more extended in the highs but going back to the cap we think this extension might be noise as it no doubt is brighter but loses it's analog like quality. I couldn't get a sense of much more than that but to be truthful, we just wanted to hear music, not constantly screw with ABing
My wife still misses the image placement of instruments we had with the LS6's, different room, different speakers, different equipment. She loves everything else about the V's. There was a lot of "wow"s last night. And not typical from a female perspective, she actually likes the treble region brighter than what I like to hear it at. I think she's a space junkie
We will have to play with some diffusers at some point. The bass traps acting as diffusers is probably another one of those "bad ideas" of mine.
