Anyone have Coincident Frankenstein amps?

Are yours a bit grainy on warm up? For the first 15 minutes of listening or so, they seem a bit dirty- but once warm, they're crystal clear. It's an interesting transition from the Franks to the MastersounD. The former is exquisitely detailed- you can hear picks moving over strings, and everything seems right there. The MastersounD has WAY more grunt- it can overpower the solid state Rowland without breaking a sweat. I was a bit surprised at how much more headroom seems available with the 845 amp than there is with the Franks. Yet, the MastersounD retains a lot of the clarity of the Franks. Each have their strengths.

Tony,
The Mastersound 845 is an exceptionally good amp and of course in your case fully broken in. The 300b won`t match the power of a 845 tube. You need hours of break in for the amp and 300b treasure tubes before they reveal their wonderful capabilities. If you think the Frankenstein is detailed and transparent now, you`ve heard nothing yet!

Very true. Also very true about comparing a 300B tube to the output one gets from an 845 tube. But I have been just a bit surprised by the relative headroom the amps seem to have....the MastersounD seems to have a LOT more- more than I had expected. I think a lot of it has to do with the music you listen to as well. Jazz, classical (some of it), seems like the Franks win with their accuracy and detail. You want to crank it up with some rock and roll, or even the 1812 Overture, the MastersounD becomes boss. The 300B's have that delicacy in the mids that is really, really nice....but the 845 tube isn't that inferior to it. I'm fortunate. Have the option of going back and forth between top notch SET amps based on different output tubes. It's a fun trial and error routine. Also need to nab some better IC's to run with the Franks- the old MIT's I'm using don't hold a candle to the Audio Metallurgy GA-0's I have with the MastersounD. Hoping that changes when I add in the Discovery Plus 4 IC's to the Frankenstein circuit. Waiting on some XLR-RCA adapters right now.

Wonder why the Franks are only rated at 8 wpc, while some other SET 300B's are capable of 15-20 wpc? Not complaining, just curious.

Tony,
The type of music and volume level preferences make a difference for sure.The 845 amp will win the grunt/rock and roll/large symphony battle, as the Frankenstein breaks in it will narrow but won`t completely close that gap. The special beauty of the Franks is with acoustic jazz and un amplified music in general. Although the mastersound is very good with this type of music ultimately I think the franks will be subtlely superior as they become increasing more organic,pure and oh so natrural with tonality,timbre and harmonic preservation. No amp can be perfect and excel in every single parameter of sound /music reproduction.The Mastersound will have the power upperhand beyond the Frankenstein`single 300b yet not quite match the transparency and purity. How forunate you are to have both.

Found a cure to some of the issues. Well, not a cure, because it wasn't really a problem....the Discovery cables added more neutrality to the Franks...definitely cleaner. Going to go with some Coincident IC's to clean things up even more. The big thing was setting the gain down on the CD5. It really brought out the clarity in the Franks. Was using high gain- on the medium setting, they're clear as a bell. Not too surprising, as Doug Schroeder mentioned in his CD5 review that the high gain can add some noise into the circuit. The Franks get better with each listening session.