What matches or betters Transparent Ref w/ xl ?

Acoustic Zen cables are much better than Transparent Ref cables. I took my Acoustic Zen cables over to a friends and we changed out his Transparent Ref cables and the Acoutic Zen outperformed them at about 1/5 the price. The Transparent stuff sounds lifeless compared to Acoutic Zen.

I also own Krell equipment and have auditioned the Transparent XL in the past. A better cable IMO is the Pure Note Epsilon Reference. With Krell gear it is much more real and musical. See if you can find used Pure Note Epsilon cables (I have seen a few here in Audiogon for sale).