As the OP, I have no problem with the direction of this thread...it's an interesting discussion really because I'll be totally honest that I wasn't completely reaching my 'V3 is brittle' conclusion based on anything but my own listening on LMA because I've very much convinced myself over the last two years that I am the only 'customer' that my ears are trying to satisfy.
I think I have some agreement with Todd...that 'brittle' might not be the best adjective. In my own listening samples, there's often a fatigueing issue with lots of the samples that I've listened to. I like the overall detail ALOT, but I just can't listen very long to the un-EQed sample without feeling like my ears are starting to ring.
A couple other experimental 'discoveries'. It seems like, in playing around with downloaded V3 files, if I back off a little on mid-range levels, it seems to de-fatigue the samples for my ears. I have no clue if this is universal for others, but it seems like that's been something that my ears are happy with.
Finally, I don't seem to experience that ringing fatigue nearly as much with the virgin V2 samples, and it's definitely not existing in the ACM samples that I listen to.
Really, I'm not suggesting any conclusions from any of the above input...I'm just saying that in doing my own unscientific research and using my basic analog feedback methods (headphones and my ears) these were some 'loose' observations, but honestly I hadn't reaching any specific conclusions because I also understand that my methods are totally subjective (like maybe what samples I've listened to).