I had a chance to do some critical listening to the V3 vs a V2. Equipment was a Marantz CD player feeding a Benchmark DAC, a Joule Electra 300 ME preamp and a pair of Revel Studio 2.
The first thing that struck us was the large increase in height and depth of the sound stage. Much taller and deeper with the V3. The instruments and voices had more depth and dimension. There was less sibilance (mike you nailed it with your explanation). The high frequency information is more articulate without any sense of grain. Bass was in my opinion a bit better in definition. This is NOT a small upgrade in my opinion but a transformation to the next level. No other $800 upgrade I could think of would make such a positive effect to the system we listened.
It has been a while since I have heard a top flight tube amp in a system. Most people I know with nice systems use tubes on the preamp and some sort of solid state for the amps. I think I will go out on a limb and suggest that we would be hard pressed to find a tube amp within the V3 price range that can do what this version presented to us. Hey, just one tube rolling session with a high power amp may pay for the V3 upgrade! Cheers all!
I would have to agree with your assessment! I just took the v3's up a notch by replacing the fuses with the Isoclean units. The level of realism just got better! Although I did replace all fuses in the system so we can take it FWIW! We know the amps are VERY sensitive to power cords so I figured a better fuse should help. Crazy hobby!
Gammajo, glad to hear you are on the mend. Hope the bed rest includes more listening time!
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