Give them some time - I used to be such a skeptic about stuff breaking in. I think as my system has gotten better, I hear more differences.
Be cool if we lived closed enough to swap tubes, I am in San Francisco Bay area. would love to hear the differences.
Oh, I also installed some NOS (60's) 5670's. Not expensive and maybe a bit smoother than the JAN's that BH provided. If I remember, you already swapped out your driver tubes.
BTW, you got me interested in open baffle speaker designs, maybe my next project, along with converting my Stereoumour to 45's.
I'll give them more time, I believe in break in, I just didn't know what to expect since they were used previously.
I'm just outside of Louisville KY. In another life I was in the San Francisco area fairly often, the company I worked for had a branch in Hayward.
You are correct, I did pick up some NOS GE 5 star 5670s, they sound nice but I still find myself listening for something my Stereomour does, a certain presence on a couple of tracks. I am beginning to suspect a difference in caps, but I dont recall hearing it until I put the JJs and the psvane in the Stereomour, maybe not until the JJ had broken in. I may try the Mundorf silver oils in the coupling cap position like my Stereomour has, unfortunately I won't be able to get Ampohms in 10uF, even if I could they wouldn't fit! Don't get me wrong, the Kaiju does some things that the Stereomour doesn't, and it does so without strain, I am really enjoying the sound, however, if I can get the sound tweaked just a tad more I will be completely happy. Of course I need to be more patient, the Stereomour didn't sound the way it does overnight.
Regarding open baffle speakers, for me they were addicting. I have been listening to OBs since the early 2000s. The set I am running currently are the best I have had, they use the same bass section as my previous pair which used a coaxial driver from 200Hz up, the current set are more refined. The only roadblock for OBs is you have to pull them out from the front wall a minimum of 36", more is better.
Best,
Ed