Hi Charles,
In my experience, the Coincident's Extreme cables are good with Coincident's gears. When I had the Esoteric X03SE powered by Extreme power cord, the glare did bother me a lot. And the other two sources were Magnum Dynalab tubed FM tuner and OPPO BDP-105. When driven by Dragons and CPRE, my Analog FM tuner sounded superb and never felt critical or in any ways lacking. What it came through to me, was that my complete system, felt more powerful than the 75wpc and the bass and lightning fast dynamics were super impressive. When I had the passive preamp driving the Franks which also powered by Coincident's Extreme power cords, the sound was very pure and the texture of strings instruments and bass drum layering was clear and infinite decay was beautiful. Replacing the passive preamp with Line Stage would be like adding wings to the mighty lion. Transparency and resolution became much clearer, i didn't have to listen as hard for the details, and without loosing the advantage of using passive preamp.
Things changed with solid state setup. I remembered reading from Coincident's website, that they don't recommend mix and match cables of various brands...so the importance here is: 'system matching'. Coincident's gears and cables have a good synergy and music was live and natural and detailed and fast and layered and soundscape was beautiful. I believe anyone who has listened to Coincident's gears at the audio show will agree to this. Makes sense with someone who is a avid vinyl enthusiast and having a large collection of vinyl records and playing with various tonearms and cartridges. Their gears are built around analog setup. More so, if he has the top of line line stage and franks and CPRE in his system. It would be my last system if I'm an analog person. But if someone having a midfi or not a pure hardcore audiophile who plays movies and digital music, with solid state setup, careful cables matching is required. Before i got into tube gears, i always find myself dissatisfied with solid state amp because of the treble glare and fatigue over a long listening period. But technology has come a long way, i find myself enjoying the affordable Chinese made solid state class A non-negative feedback integrated amplifier and the TWL cables really helps to make it happen in such a way that it sounds like tube amp without glare. If analog gears is used, does comes through very impressively (maybe not in the same league as Franks / CPRE, but enjoyable and satisfying and sufficient for me).
Sure, I've heard better sound than my current setup. Like when I delivered my Dragons to a local buyer here in Canada, he was a vinyl person with lots and lots and lots of vinly albums. He has one original pressed in the 60s, CD formar, SACD, SHM-CD and a re-issued LP. He played it all for me, the CD/SACD/SHM on his Esoteric player, impressive as it moves to the higher resolution format. Still it won't be the re-issued LP and the most formidable, original pressed LP with the popping sound during playback...it was the "fat" or body or harmonics that makes music, MUSIC! Best part is, his turntable was a Thoren used $350 and $600 cartridge and he used a 35 year old Audio Research active preamp with phono stage built in, and the speakers were Coincident's Super Eclipse MK3 which i got it from him as trades. Best music is still analog.
So, it really comes down to type of music, budget and more importantly, system matching. I'm sure TWL will sound as good on the Franks, also their cables are cheaper than Coincident's Extreme.
Jimmy
