Thanks Sam.
I went thro all the rear drag shimanos, from the exage to the stradic( white). I ended with 4 XT-RB's.( still use 2 4ks for carp!) I then went to Bios and have 7(dont laugh). There was a guy in Italy last year and i got 5 from him. He had loads,all new, but all gone now.I recon they are the nuts. I bought a stradic c14 ra 2500 this year which I still have.It doesn't hold a candle in my view to the bios. I would love to swap it for one with cash either way.By the way, I have just put a stradic 2.5 on the bio 2.5.Fits and vice versa.Amazed if they are not interchangeable. Line capacity given on spool is exactly the same too.
I remember the tri power blue ones.Johnson Ross had some, knocking them out i the end for 109 I think. Kicked myself for not buying.I also remember press reports saying no one needed 2 drags so i wonder if the negative comments killed them off!
If the Stradic spool you have fits a Biomaster, I suspect you may have the multitude of Stradic models mixed up. There's no way on earth that a Stradic Ci4+ RA spool will fit a Biomaster of the same size (2500/3000/4000 etc). The current Stradic Ci4+ RA (linked in the previous post) has the higher diameter X-Ship rotors and spools (as does the GT RD). In many ways, the Stradic Ci4+ RA is a better reel than the Twin Power Ci4 RA. If it had the additional front drag it would be better than the Twin Power as far as I'm concerned.
Here's a pic of a couple of X-Ship type wide spools in comparison to standard sized spools from the same sized Shimano reels. I appreciate that it's a bit of an apples and oranges comparison with some being front drag, but it does show that the X-Ship type spools are a fair bit bigger than their standard equivalents.
Top left =
Stradic Ci4+ 2500 FB, Top right =
Super GT 2500 RD
Bottom left = Twinpower Ci4 4000 RA, Bottom right =
Stradic Ci4+ 4000 RA
I suspect the high price and seeming to be "gimmicky" killed the Twin Power. Lack of availability didn't help. I had to buy blind to try one and never got to see one in any of the shops I visit. I've long suspected that the vast majority of naysayers never even got to see one in the flesh, let alone actually use them. The fact that Shimano seem to have suffered a bit of customer negativity amongst match and general coarse anglers really hasn't helped. I don't think the way that Shimano uses the same names and confusing model number/letter designations for totally different reels helps either. There are a least three different current Stradic models. Some have an anti-reverse switch, some don't. Because folks can't easily tell which is which, they just end up avoiding the brand.