This is a great comp. I burned it to disc last night and listened on my home system intently. I do hear some slight differences, but nothing that makes either one in any way "better" than the other to my ears. The warmth of the transformers is the main characteristic that I like about stock 460s.
I personally don't see a benefit for me to paying $$ for JW to rip out the transformers. If I wanted transformerless, I would just buy a pair of 480 bodies and call it a day. This comp really helped my answer the question in my mind once and for all. Thanks much for doing this this comp!!!
Thanks for the input Brad. I agree with you 100% that there is only a slight difference in the over all sound. The more and more i run comps the more I realize that the real difference is shown the further back you are away for the sound source. When you run "FOB" you lose out on the room sound, where I believe the real difference would be more obvious. For me, at this point with my current gear options, the JW mod is a benefit becuase I can choose to use them with the actives and get the "brighter" sound in a boomy room or go with the stock 460 if I feel the room is lacking thump. Example, for Hampton I plan to run the JW Mods with my ck3x actives to try to counter act the "hockey arena" sound.
I plan to continue to run more comps with this same band. They play every wednesday and the band & the venue give me full access to do what i want. Next up will be JW 460 vs. Stock 480 and then I will start doing some other comps like ck61 vs ck1, ck63 vs ck3, ck69 vs ck8, etc.