Anyone have Coincident Frankenstein amps?

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.

Update: The Frankensteins are really opening up. Very clear, great imaging, dead quiet. Bass is authoratative, not rolled off, and the highs are excellent, with little roll off as well. Think some of the grainy character was due to the MIT cables I was using- they're old and have seen their fair share of abuse. The Coincident Extreme IC's make the amps sound even better. Very neutral. Seem cleaner than the Discovery cables. Thanks to all who helped me out here. These are great amplifiers, and I'm exceptionally pleased with them. Sure as hell don't sound like "only" 8 watts now. New turntable arrives this week. Can't wait to see how it sounds then.

Tony, before I purchased these amps that was my primary concern also, would 8 watts drive my speakers. Israel Bloom promised they would be more than enough, well that was an understatement they are simply fanstatic with my speakers(Coincident Total Eclipse-94db and 14 ohm load). My room is fairly large but the sound completely saturates the entire space, not just in terms of volume, I mean spooky presence and sound projecting seemingly from real performers on a stage. I would think with your Zu speakers your experience will be quite similar. As they continue to breakin your appreciation of the Frankensteins will grow much deeper.
What`s your impression of their performance in terms of tonality/timbre and harmonic overtone preservation?

Tonality/timbre is very neutral in my opinion, Charles. They don't seem to color the sound at all- what's on the source is what you get, right down to very fine soft sounds at the fringe of the recordings. They pull everything out of the source. The soundstage and imaging is fabulous- you seem to be able to place instruments and voice in space like you don't get with the 845 amplifier. Cannot wait until my analog rig arrives tomorrow- should open up a whole new world with which to play in. Israel Blume was dead on- these 8 wpc are a very, very big sounding 8 wpc as the amps and tubes begin to break in, and it will only get better. He's also been an invaluable source of information to me. Just a great guy, very easy to work with. I think a lot of my initial issues with "grunt" and "graininess" were related to interconnects- the improvement I've seen with better interconnects is substantial, as in any initial reservations I had with the Franks has vanished.

Harmonic overtone preservation? LOL. You got me there, Charles. That means as much to me as pterygopalatine fossa probably means to you. If you know what the latter is, my hat is off to you in a very big way. Care to help me out with the harmonic overtone preservation stuff? Always open to learning from others here.