I've had a pair of Monocle XL's for about a year and a half and love'em. They made a huge, if not stunning, improvement in my system (at the time, AH!Tjoeb, VTL, Bryston, and Thiel, in that order). That said, I have never compared them to comparable, or even vaguely comparable, cables -- so I really can't be of much help other than to say that, in the absense of meaningful comparison, the before v. after improvement was so great that I just stopped caring about looking for anything else. (I got'em for a real bargain, so I couldn't resist trying'em out).