Cardas Clear Speaker Cables - From cable skeptic to beliver in one fell swoop


Hello,

For many years I have been happily living with various flavors of Mogami speaker cable during the many stages of my audio journey and felt that they did an excellent job at presenting music in a clear, neutral and honest way. For the money I still consider them an excellent choice.

Recently I decided to take a trip to the dark side and go against my belief that an esoteric cable won't offer much more in terms of SQ compared to my super short run (2ft) of Mogami 2921 cables.

As a first test I started by dipping my toes into the water with a pair of Cardas Neutral Reference which fairly quickly showed some promise that maybe I was wrong all this time. I felt that they didn't really do anything wrong and in fact did some things better than my Mogami's did.

After this test I found myself asking the question, "Hrmm, I wonder how a cable further up the chain would sound". I was liking what I heard so far so why stop now.

Next up I tried a pair of Cardas Golden Reference. After hearing these  It didn't take long to realize that My system was indeed being held back by using the cheaper cables all this time. I liked many things about the GR cables but ultimatly thought they added a bit too much salt and pepper to the sound and seemed to round off the bass more than I prefered. But, the new details and soundstage depth/width they extracted became addicting.

As before, I started asking myself another question again "If these GR cables are this good I wonder if a cable even furthur up the chain would give me everything the GR does without the drawbacks?".

This time I decided to just jump in head first and quit messing around. So I borrowed a set of Cardas Clear from the Cable Co with much fear after seeing the price of the cables.

As my time winds down borrowing these Clear cables I can feel my wallet starting sweat. In all honesty it only took about 2hrs from the time the first note started playing until I began to hear these cables start to do EVERYTHING right. Soundstage Width- Check, Soundstage Depth - Double Check, Bass Accuracy - Impressive is an understatement, Soundstage Detail and Clairity - Yup, Everywhere in spades.

So with all that said, I can say with 100% certainty that I'm writing the check. After hearing what these cables did for my system there is just no going going back no matter how painful the price tag is.

As they say ignorance is bliss. In my case if I didn't take a chance and swallow my pride then I would still probably be oblivious to how much more my system had to offer.

Any other Cardas Clear users hear? What are your findings?

Thanks


eniac26
@garebear, The Cardas Clear were excellent, but beyond my budget, so I compared Clear Light to Purist Aqueous Aureus - Luminist (4 meter, $2200).
I auditioned ICs and speaker cables; I liked the smooth highs of the Purist.
@almarg

Thanks for the detailed response Al. The increasing capacitance value does somewhat concern me in that when I go to purchase these cables I will actually need a 4m length in my setup. I borrowed the 3m length due to its immediate availability and just to get a taste of what they sounded like in my system.

In cases like my own is where knowing other cable brands capacitance value for the same length of cable would come in handy. If Brand X had a significantly lower capacitance and similar Inductance value as the Clear cables for the same 4m length it would certainly prompt me to give those a try as well before making a final decision to see how those lower values effect the sound.

There problem here is that I only know of 1 other brands who I would consider of the similar quality to the Clear who post actual cable specs (Nordst) but they aren't sold by the CableCo so demoing them wouldn't be an option. At these prices, that is not a gamble I am willing to take.

So I guess I can only cross my fingers that the additional 3ft of Cardas Clear that I need wont cause the SQ I heard with the shorter cable to decrease by a noticeable margin. I would like to believe that the added length wont make much of a difference compared to what I heard before.

Thanks
Cardas Clear rev1 2m speaker cables, 2 pair of Clear xlr cables, and all Clear Beyond powercords here.....get my vote*********
System: Magnepan 20.7's, Bryston 28sst2's,lumin A1 streamer, Blue Circle Pre.

Cardas are good but MIT delivers such a vast improvement in any system I've owned...other cables sound lifeless and 2 dimensional!
.......I have always wondered why MIT needs a box to sound good ?  Wouldn't a good cable design correct that ? The OP's post is on Cardas not MIT