My expereience has been similar to that of Frogman's.
Wire is really very simple. It either alters phase by virtue of its reactance (inductance and capacitance), shields well (or not), and has resistance. Litz configurations address phase and skin effect, by virtue of their design - with each strand spending an equal amount of "time" in the center of the bundle.
Getting there isn't all that simple however (grin).
The Discovery cable is much lower capacitance than the Cardas, but having said that, some systems need the tone control (capacitance) inherent in Cartdas' designs.
In my experience, the Discovery is more of a Chameleon. In a tonearm wire context, you'd call it a bit bright if you judged it in a Tri-Planar, and extended, full-bodied and organic in a Talea tonearm.
I recently had to re-terminate my Talea tonearm (having had XLR connectors on it and converting it to RCAs).
I initially started with some Cardas rhodium RCAs I had on hand. I asked Joe for a set of stock Discovery connectors.
The shift from the Cardas to the Discovery connectors was qualitatively similar to the differences in the two wires, as a few layers of fog were peeled away when I went to the Discovery RCAs.
There's much more metal in the Cardas RCA's, and this fits with my recent experience of the past few years, that less metal is better (e.g. Eichman Bullet Plugs).
So, what's new? Not much. Cables still end up being our tone controls.
If your Cardas cables are a bit too laid back for you, I suggest you don't throw them out quite yet, but rather try your hand at re-terminating them with say, Eichman Bullet Plugs.
It could save you quite a bit of $do-rei-me.
Cheers,
Thom @ Galibier
Wire is really very simple. It either alters phase by virtue of its reactance (inductance and capacitance), shields well (or not), and has resistance. Litz configurations address phase and skin effect, by virtue of their design - with each strand spending an equal amount of "time" in the center of the bundle.
Getting there isn't all that simple however (grin).
The Discovery cable is much lower capacitance than the Cardas, but having said that, some systems need the tone control (capacitance) inherent in Cartdas' designs.
In my experience, the Discovery is more of a Chameleon. In a tonearm wire context, you'd call it a bit bright if you judged it in a Tri-Planar, and extended, full-bodied and organic in a Talea tonearm.
I recently had to re-terminate my Talea tonearm (having had XLR connectors on it and converting it to RCAs).
I initially started with some Cardas rhodium RCAs I had on hand. I asked Joe for a set of stock Discovery connectors.
The shift from the Cardas to the Discovery connectors was qualitatively similar to the differences in the two wires, as a few layers of fog were peeled away when I went to the Discovery RCAs.
There's much more metal in the Cardas RCA's, and this fits with my recent experience of the past few years, that less metal is better (e.g. Eichman Bullet Plugs).
So, what's new? Not much. Cables still end up being our tone controls.
If your Cardas cables are a bit too laid back for you, I suggest you don't throw them out quite yet, but rather try your hand at re-terminating them with say, Eichman Bullet Plugs.
It could save you quite a bit of $do-rei-me.
Cheers,
Thom @ Galibier