I own a V70SE and have not heard the V40. I heard the V80 but it was too far out of my budget to even consider it.
Anyhow I had a Bryston B100 SST and thought it sounded great. I had a chance for an in home demo of the V70SE so I went for it. Well it took me about 10 seconds to know I had to have it. More power and much much better control over the instruments and vocals. The Octave just crushed the Bryston all around in sound quality. After I bought it I add the black box which increases the capacitance 4 times. It lowered the noise floor which sold me on it. I have Dynaudio C1 signatures - normally tough to drive but not with the V70SE.
Some nice features of the Octave integrateds is the soft start which is supposed to extend tube life - output tube failure protection to save the circuits in the event of a tube failure - manual biasing with a LED readout. Now for the best part in my opinion - TUBE ROLLING. BY flipping tubes you can change the sound anytime you want.
I can't recommend it enough.
Anyhow I had a Bryston B100 SST and thought it sounded great. I had a chance for an in home demo of the V70SE so I went for it. Well it took me about 10 seconds to know I had to have it. More power and much much better control over the instruments and vocals. The Octave just crushed the Bryston all around in sound quality. After I bought it I add the black box which increases the capacitance 4 times. It lowered the noise floor which sold me on it. I have Dynaudio C1 signatures - normally tough to drive but not with the V70SE.
Some nice features of the Octave integrateds is the soft start which is supposed to extend tube life - output tube failure protection to save the circuits in the event of a tube failure - manual biasing with a LED readout. Now for the best part in my opinion - TUBE ROLLING. BY flipping tubes you can change the sound anytime you want.
I can't recommend it enough.