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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
almarg's avatar
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almarg
8,673 posts
 
P.S. to my previous post: The reason for the relatively high capacitance per unit length of the Cardas Clear is most likely that it helps make possible the cable’s very low inductance (0.0176 microHenries/foot). The likelihood that a low inductance such as that will be beneficial (putting aside the potential effects of the high capacitance on the amplifier) will tend to be greatest if the impedance of the particular speaker is low at high frequencies, and if the length of the cable is longer rather than shorter.

Regards,
-- Al

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lowrider57
3,018 posts
 
I’ve auditioned Cardas IC’s and speaker cables thru the Cable Company.
My findings were that the Clear line of cables were vastly superior to the old Cross cables. The earlier Cardas have a warm sonic signature with rolled-off highs. The Clear and Clear Light were much more transparent with more detail and extension. Soundstaging was wider and deeper, but still had some of the Cardas signature warmth. I found them very enjoyable in my system.

It should be noted that if you are using fully balanced components, there may not be a drastic difference in sonics between IC’s.
When using SE components, the different sonic signatures of RCA interconnects are very noticeable. Having said that, I found a great deal of difference in sonics between the Cardas models and other brand IC’s when used with my SE components.

In my shoot-out between Cardas and Purist Audio, I chose Purist for my IC’s and speaker cables. I found the Purist to reproduce a more natural, organic sound.
garebear
719 posts
 
What Purist were you using as that would help
eniac26 OP
95 posts
 

A point that may be relevant is that Cardas Clear has a capacitance of 278 pf/foot, which is considerably higher than the capacitance of most other speaker cables. Mogami 2921 is more like 30 pf/foot. And by any chance was the Cardas Clear you tried significantly longer than the 2 foot length of your Mogami 2921? 
In any event, enjoy! Regards,
-- Al

Hello Al,

Yes the Cardas Clear that I demo'd where longer. In this case the Cardas were 8ft longer then the Mogami for reasons that require to much motivation to list in this thread.

In any case I don't know why but there was an undeniable increase in the amount of musical information they conveyed. It wasn't even remotely subtle either. It was a true WTF moment each time I listened to them.

I believe my speakers (Magico S3) would indeed fit the bill you describe in terms of low Impedence nominal and even lower as the Freq increases.

One of the many reasons I like Cardas is because they as a company seem far more transparent about what goes into making there cables, especially in terms of having the guts to list actual measurement specs of the specific cable in question. Clearly most other cable brands are far less brave which is very aggravating. Other brands would rather try and Wow you with fancy scientific terms and various other Voodo methods that don't really tell you anything useful. If everyone posted specs and detail on cable layout design it would possibly help better explain why some cables sound so much different than others make shopping much quicker and easier. 

I wish I knew how having such a high capacitence and low inductance allowed the cable to present so much more information in my system compared to other cables I've heard but then again maybe the reason has nothing to do with either and more to do with how the wire is constructed.


almarg's avatar
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almarg
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Eniac, yes I certainly agree that Cardas (and a number of other manufacturers) are to be commended for providing meaningful information about the design of their cables.  Unfortunately those manufacturers seem to be in the minority.  And while in general such information will of course not enable one to predict how a given cable will sound in a given system, at the very least it may allow some cables to be ruled in or ruled out from consideration, especially if longish lengths are involved (since most cable parameters are proportional to length).  And it can provide confidence that the cable is not simply designed to sound different by virtue of having bizarre electrical parameters.  As well as providing confidence that the designers have a good understanding of what they are doing.
I believe my speakers (Magico S3) would indeed fit the bill you describe in terms of low Impedence nominal and even lower as the Freq increases.
Since the impedance presented by an inductance rises in proportion to frequency, and in the case of a speaker cable that impedance will assume increased significance as it becomes an increasing fraction of speaker impedance, in general that kind of speaker will be more sensitive than average to cable inductance.  And lower inductance will work in the direction of providing increased extension and detail at high frequencies.  However in this case I suspect that is not what is making the difference, because the inductance of the Mogami cable was also fairly low, by virtue of its short length.

What seems more likely to me, although without having knowledge of and analyzing the design of the specific amp it can't be said with any certainty, is that the 2780 pf of capacitance presented by the 10 foot length of Cardas Clear may to some degree have caused a resonant peak in the frequency response of the amp at certain high frequencies.  Perhaps in the ultrasonic or RF region, but with effects on audible frequencies occurring as a result of phase shifts and/or intermodulation effects. 

If so, a length that is considerably shorter than the 10 foot length of the cable you evaluated wouldn't necessarily provide similar results, even in your particular system.  But as you indicated, it's also certainly possible that neither of these parameters had anything to do with the differences that resulted.

Regards,
-- Al
 
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