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The Russian NOS 6N8S I tried are rare & expensive mil spec stamped 1578 with metal base. I believe they date to 1955.

Yes I as well have used Vishay S102's many years ago and ran an ear opening experiment with them. I had an Adcom 535 Amp. De soldered one entire channel only with about 13 Vishays Bulk Metal Films. The ones that cost about $10.00 Each. I did this just for one channel only to see if I could hear the difference, and let the other channel alone.
All I can say was WOW WOW WOW.The noise floor dropped way way down. You coud hear absolute silence between every note that was played thru my phono stage. Detail was magnified substantially But without any hardness to speak of. Everything was absolutely effortlessly in reproduction. Once I installed the ther channel the 3D imaging really expanded wall to wall. To bad I still do not have that amp today. It was one of a kind and alot of work, But worth the challenge. I hope this answers some of your questions.

76Doublebass,

Good for you! I did the same thing with Vishays bridged in speakers and the difference was shocking. The image is wall to wall. I think the Duelunds that I recently purchased have a simliar impact as the Vishays. The Duelunds are a easier and less expensive swap than building a high power resistor out of many Vishays for speakers and in some instances power amps. Tom

Hi dgarretson!
Did you change xover (internal) for treble on Merlin VSM-MX to Duelund R and VSF Copper capacitor?
If, what value on capacitor/resistor.
Really would like to know difference in sound compared to original.

Enjoy the music!

Hi Clabe, I ended up reworking the VSM-MX tweeter section in two steps. First, I replaced stock 6.0uf Hovland with 6.2uf Claritycap MR. (The two matched Claritycaps measured an actual 6.14uf.) Nice improvement--more openness and relaxation as compared to aggressive, forward sound of Hovland. After 150 hrs break-in of caps, I replaced 20R, 5.31R, and .8R Caddock MP820/1 with Duelund resistors in exact values. After 50 hrs break-in the initial brightness of Duelund resistors recedes & Duelund easily surpasses Caddock in clarity and refinement. Extraordinarily good resistors. Of the total improvement from these mods, I would credit Duelund R 60%, and Claritycap MR 40%.

To make room for Claritycap MR inboard requires grinding thickness off the MDF panel that supports the crossover network. I chose Claritycap MR over Duelund VSF mainly to obtain the low-resonance technology available in both of these caps, while also keeping the crossover inboard. To keep the crossover inboard with the large footprint of a Duelund cap in tweeter, would have required also installing Duelund in woofer(replacing 8uf and 8.5uf paralleled Hovlands with one 16.5uf Duelund.) While these two changes together would doubtless have sounded fantastic, I preferred feeling my way with an initial cap budget of $300, rather than roll over for $2K to Mr. Duelund. Maybe later on...

I find that bypassing the remaining paralleled Hovlands with a .015uf/200V NOS Russian FT-1 teflon cap slightly improves midrange and LF. After this all breaks in I will try a few more small teflon caps in parallel with Hovland in woofer section.