will
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My Torii, in this room, has been too strong in the bass for my tastes from the start, and using MG944s and HR-1s. It was a very minor issue with the SE34 I had before the Torii MkIII. I believe I sent it back to see if something was wrong too, and Steve suggested starting to treat the room with some ideas for bass traps and plugging up some of the speaker plinth space. With bass traps, EQ, speaker tuning, and some tube adjustments, I have balanced it and my sound is off the charts good. It appears that the Torii can just be this way in particular rooms, and according to Steve, with particular speakers, and/or with speakers too close to walls and corners.
The thing I don't get about yours is how it was fine and got worse to the point of being unlistenable. Do you use the amp infrequently? Is it possible that it is the V-caps burning in? I have no idea how they burn in, but they are notoriously long. Seems unlikely, but man, what a weird situation.
Have you tried changing the power VRs in a biggish way? Going from OA3 to OB3, OC3, and OD3 will progressively chill the bass and open the sound. In this case, I might go extreme and try some nice OD3 VRs. They are generally pretty cheap and make a big difference by calming down the power tubes I believe. I have used 40s and 50s Hytrons and found them very nice, but others from that period are probably good too.
For inputs, probably the best bet is a phillips/amperex family 7DJ8. For rectifier, perhaps a brightish 5AR4 will tighten things up...like a JJ, but if you go there, I would ask Ron at cryoset wat he recommends. He now has many cryo'd GZ34/5AR4s including Mullard and Genelex. The most open and least bassy and good sounding power tubes I have tried are probably EL34BSTR Ruby Cryo Matched Quad from cryoset.
But if more tube exploration is interesting, and you have not tried OD3s, they may be worth a try first. They might do a lot.
If it is room, which I expect Steve decided it was at least in part, you will likely need to do some low bass traps. To find out, or if your problems are not extreme after review...it can be a little tedious, but if your music player software has built in EQ, you can set up a narrow Q and raise it heavily, then work through the low frequency ranges with bassy music playing to find the culprits. They will be really obnoxious with a good bump. This is an easy way to identify and then finally Q out the offensive room modes...sort of like mastering your whole collection to fit better in your room. I have found this to be a very transparent solution using EQ in my Pure Music player in my Mac Mini.
I hope you can figure it out. As transporting as this amp can be, it makes me sad to hear your story!
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