So I had a chance to listen to some W10VTG's last night courtesy of a very generous loan from JB. I spent over an hour at first just listening to the VTGs to get a sense for them. Very polite sounding, easy to listen to, no glaring faults. Also, they fit a lot better than the W5ks even though I didn't think that I was having fit issues with the W5s. They just seemed to settle better on my head, kind of hard to articulate really. After getting to know them a bit I decided that I'd do a little back and forth between the VTGs and the W5ks. I haven't been able to confirm but the VTG's seem to be a bit harder to drive so I was constantly making volume adjustments when switching back and forth. No effort was made to precisely volume match for this round of experimentation. Regardless the back and forth did little but confirm my position that the W5ks probably aren't a headphone for me. Comparing the two I did prefer the top end of the W's, it felt more open with better instrument separation. But the overall the VTGs simply owner the W's with far better mids and lows. If I had to pick one, today, I'd go for the VTGs.
More than anything what I think I'm getting out of this experimentation is that I think I'm done with dynamic headphones w/ the HF-1s and HD650s. They offer good variety for pretty short money. Hell the combination of the 2 including the Zu cable cost me less than the W5ks. So if I'm going to spend money on anything I'm thinking that I'll either give stats a try or just leave well enough alone.
And before someone comes in and tells me that I need to try x or y to get the W5ks to sound right, no, I don't. I've never found an amp, source, cable or otherwise to fundamentally change the way a headphone sounds and fundamentally I have issues with the W5ks.