Cardas Clear Reflection advice needed

Break-In? Burn-in? Relaxing the cables? Releasing dialectric tension - Say What?

Just swapped out 3-week old Clear Reflection interconnects with 200+hrs on them for a 2nd brand new pair with (0) hours time on them.  Put the new pair in the exact same source/input spot to prove something in reverse about break-in on these too.    

Reverse Test:  

• Hour-1 Results: back to grainy, closed in, compressed sound stage, not smooth, less tone, less timbre, not enjoyable to listen to new.
• Hour-24: still grainy, a mild opening of the sound stage, a little more tone, a little more detail, weight coming through. Piano not as bad.
• New is not as engaging or "natural" sounding as the prior 3-week pair with 200hrs on them. Hands down there is a difference.   

Same result as former coiled-up Cardas in a bag or box, and a few other brands tested.  There can be a real benefit of giving Clear Reflections a few weeks of time to uncoil, relax, settle in place before things begin to sound "right".  Give it 3+weeks before making a premature judgement. Things do change, give it time, fwiw.   

@mikey8811 decooney, I am still using the same. Clear Reflection between DAC and pre and Clear Beyond between pre and power.

I am tempted to try another Clear Beyond in the place of the Clear Reflection but it costs a lot more.

If you don't mind me looping back on this topic months later, did you end up trying a pair of Clear Beyond ICs in place of your downstream pair of Clear Reflections?

I moved my second Clear Ref ICs to my preamp to mono amps, giving it a try. The result was a little too veiled over running a full loom stacking two pairs, and relayed this to a contact at Cardas. I acknowledge not having more than 80hrs on them. Cardas informed me more time and letting them relax in place uncoiled may be needed.  I'm still wondering about your prior post where you were guided to use Clear Beyond between your pre-to-amps instead. Wondering if that worked out or not. Or if the Clear Refs are are working out better now instead.  

@decooney No, I didn't add another Clear Beyond. If I find another at a good price I may but I like things as they are now.

As mentioned in my post dated 24 May 2022, I did try the Clear Reflection between pre and power and the Clear Beyond between DAC and pre and found the sound too veiled. I didn't bother trying them this way again.

Thx @mikey8811 as I will be re-trying to figure out if there is some sensitivity to placement in the system chain, such as pre-to-amps. I like the CRFs at the source, and when paired with a more clear cable downstream so far. When doubling-up with a full loom of CRFs is what I'm not convinced of yet since my 2nd pair is brand new.  And then there is this, if you believe in this - http://www.cardas.com/insights_break_in.php

@decooney @mikey8811 @jl1ny @sdl4  Resurrecting a 2 yr old thread because it’s exactly on topic for my situation.  Any one have additional thoughts on the Cardas Clear Reflection RCA interconnects?  Especially between DAC and Pre?  I’m considering replacing my long-time use of Cardas Golden Reference between my DAC and integrated amp. Also, did anyone use a cable burn-in device to try to reduce the very long burn-in Cardas cables seem to require?

Additional information: the room is not optimized (LR), DAC is Chord Qutest/M-Scaler combo into a Cary SLI-80 HS with all the upgrades. Listen almost exclusively to jazz.  Thanks!