I had a V2, bought a V3, sold the V2. Last night I used the V3 with my brand-new R-44. Had some odd problems and will talk about them in another message; am in too much of a hurry now, and need breakfast. Nonetheless I write.
What I miss about the V2 are its unbalanced outputs (useful for me because I sometimes have to run a cassette in parallel with the digital recording), plus general pride of ownership--somehow Grace's whole product pitch gets to me. It's definitely good stuff, but there's also the image which makes me want to own one. ("Precious ...") I would feel jilted by life if I could not.
I'm intrigued by Todd R's remarks about transient response, and would like to ask him whether the scenario he describes so clearly, with drum strikes and the peak-to-average-ratios of recordings, is one which he has actually observed, or whether it is conjectural.
The reason I'm asking is that (agreeing with ghellquist) a linear analog circuit can't behave as described. The whole idea of "slow" vs. "fast" transient response in linear circuits, as a characteristic that's independent of their frequency response, is a huge honking myth. If an audio circuit can't change its output voltage quickly enough to "track" its input, distortion products (at frequencies other than those of the input) inevitably occur. If on the other hand a circuit is "fast" enough to reproduce the highest audio frequencies at its maximum output level, then making it "faster" doesn't really change anything unless strong signals above the audio band are present at the inputs. In that case, the ability to handle those signals without slew rate limiting will keep the distortion down--but filtering everything above the audio range offers the same benefit.
--best regards