The thread seems oriented towards the fine tuning and amelioration of the Statement through better 101d's tubes.
neverthless I add my experience, I recently had the opportunity to compare in my system Allnic L-3000 and Coincident statement (the latter I listened previously in two friend's systems). Both are not imported here in Italy; test were not side to side but in two different days. obviously same configuration, identical cables, same music etc.
My reference was my linestage Aria WV11XL (the Mike Elliott's design), power amp is again from Elliott an hybrid Altavista NP220 premium (400kohm impedance).
I had great expectations and I was not disappointed, I listened to two fantastic preamps and among the very best to find on the market in a reasonable class of price.
Sonic charachter was slightly different; timbre and texture was a tiny better with Allnic that shows a very nice balance and better coherence from bottom to end. Both linestage have a truly first class detail; especially during the adagios in classical music they are absolutely superb revealing minimal ambience details and great focus. I find some difference in presentation of music, which is (very slightly) more advanced with Allnic and more distant with the Canadian product.
In some symphonic program I would prefer a similar presentation as the Statement performance, since Im used to listen from 3rd to 10th row at concerts hall but this is only my taste...
Coincident is undoubtly much faster; its easy to hear with some piano solos or acoustic guitar when it sounds fantastic, otherwise its sometimes slightly edgy in the upper treble; some unobtrusive sibilance appears occasionally so I suggest that it will be partnered with more caution with the rest of a system.
On the other side Allnic L-3000 was a better choice with choir and opera voices, more clear and refined..
On the dynamics side they are both excellent (along with my Aria); in my tests all units were very similar in gain configuration (approx. 18-20 db gain). I must tell that the Statement unit I had was also occasionally sensitive to RFI and loop mass noises.
In the subjective external appearance I find better refined the chassis of the Korean Allnic; which is clearly better thanks having a remote controlled volume, 5 inputs and a tape loop; the Coincident statement has only two inputs... very poor in flexibility also considering that it costs about half a price of Allnic...
But.. about sound quality I would be very hesitant to make a choice.. both absolutely excellent.
Just my twocents.
Marco
