Early in 2016 I bought a secondhand Prima Luna Prologue 3 preamp with built in phono stage. I was immediately impressed by the stereo sound stage of the thing. In November 2016 I then bought a Prima Luna Dialogue Premium power amp fitted with the then standard EL34's. After a year or so I swapped over the power valves to JJ EL34 II's. This provided a much more refined sound over the stock valves.
At that time I was using B&W CM8 S2's and thought that the sound was good but then domestic things happened and I had to swap those over to Spendor S3/5R2's. Domestic things happened again and by sheer chance I stumbled upon a dealer who immediately demo'd a pair of KEF R5's when requested. I went back the next day and bought them.
Now during the period of CM8's and R5's I noticed that I couldn't get over a certain hardness to the upper mid and treble. I checked and noticed that I was using the 4 Ohm taps even though these speakers do dip down slightly below 4 Ohms so I assumed all was OK, I then though swapped onto the 8 Ohm taps to see if there was a difference. Oh my, what a difference. No trace of hardness or aggression in the sound anymore making me certain that in my case the 8 Ohm taps are superior.
I now thought 'what about triode mode' ? So of course I switched it on. Playing some vocal jazz the difference is astonishing. Incredibly 'real' and natural. So much separation between instruments. The sound is noticeably drier and tighter but way more preferable to me. So on to the question. What if I swapped the EL34's to KT120's..? Does anyone have experience of these valves in direct comparison to EL34's.
Once again I thank you in advance if you come up with advice for me.
Cheers everyone. Happy self isolating.
Oh yeah, CD source, Atlas Hyper interconnects with Tellurium Q Blue cables, single wired.