Grainger,
I understand what you are saying about caps: I think I'll focus more on tube rolling than cap rolling for a while. I'm not certain you can really learn an amp until you have lived with it in a static state for some time. One needs to be comfortable that you can hear subtleties and that just takes time.
Thank you for asking about the Hawthorne's. These are an open baffle speaker that is purpose designed as such. The Hawthorne's are rated at 96db and are designed with low watt SET amps in mind. They are often set up with either a single driver/tweeter combo or as a "duet" with an additional bass augmenter speaker or even as a "trio" with two additional bass augmenters. Some recent experiments with five 10" bass augmenters has yielded very fast, detailed, and musical bass response for the handful of brave souls who have tried this set up. Everyone tries their own baffle design and configuration. Mine is a "1015 Duet" style. I use a narrow top of the baffle to keep a fast mid and upper range, while I have a wider bottom to aid in bass response (with OB, you can "tune" the sound by the baffle shape/size).
My current setup is a 1" compression driver center firing through the cone section of a 10" mid-woofer. This gives the benefits of both a crossover speaker (letting each driver handle the range it is good at) and the pinpoint detail of a full range speaker due to the unique configuration of the compression tweeter. I also have 15" bass augmenters that I am bi-amping in true stereo with two Rythmik plate amps with a special OB "shelf" design. I'm not an expert on the specifics but Rythmik worked hard to develop an OB version of their Servo plate amp. Having these in stereo really adds to the imaging, particularly on drums and such.
Front showing 10" and 15" drivers (CD tweeter center mounted in the cone of the 10"):
(https://forum.bottlehead.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hawthorneaudio.com%2Fphotos%2Falbums%2Fuserpics%2F11473%2Fnormal_photo-211.JPG&hash=597c896dcea88bceaa39b8443dd32e79b64bde6f)
Back showing 10" and 15" drivers (CD tweeter center mounted in the cone of the 10") and remote crossover:
(https://forum.bottlehead.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hawthorneaudio.com%2Fphotos%2Falbums%2Fuserpics%2F11473%2Fnormal_photo-212.JPG&hash=355a1e8f01a653cb475d73bc61845e6adab20be6)
in the left and right background, you can see the two plate amps:
(https://forum.bottlehead.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hawthorneaudio.com%2Fphotos%2Falbums%2Fuserpics%2F11473%2Fnormal_photo-210.JPG&hash=0249f935d37252186381c3127af33ff34b489420)
Basically, I drive the compression tweeter and 10" mid-woofer with my SET amp and send a split signal via RCAs to each of my two Rythmik amps. The idea is to maximize each of the strengths of the components to have as few compromises as possible. There doesn't seem to be an end to how far folks can take this (and I'm just in the beginning of my OB journey). The sound is a very present, highly detailed quality with lots of 3D soundstage. Moving the speakers a bit can adjust the dipole delay to create more/less depth, which is really fun!
Here is a professional review of a set of Hawthorne "Duet" speakers:
http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue31/hawthorne.htmHope that helps!
John