I have had the Ultimate Reference IC's and SC's in my system for the last several weeks. I just realized today that I have had my SC's hooked up backwards (positive leads on negative terminals). My cables did not come with red and black bands on the leads. In case yours came that way, note that the gold base lead is the positive/hot side. These cables are definitely directional!!!!
Hooked up correctly, very full, louder, detailed and tonally correct. Hooked up backwards they were metallic sounding lacking fullness and lacking correct tonality and recessed. Suppose these will need to restart the break-in but so far with less than an hour the SC is very promising.
Andrew