AUDIENCE AU24e vs CARDAS CLEAR for HEGEL/JA PULSAR

I just auditioned the Audience AU24E and Cardas Clear Sky and Acoustic Zen Satori. The AZ I felt was warm but not as transparent as the Audience. Although the Cardas was clear in the highs, I found it lacking bass and body.

I didn't want to spend that much but the Audience was amazing.
It has everything - tonality, musicality, bass, imaging - and suit my system perfectly, so I ordered them to get off the merry-go-round.

I don't know the Hegel equipment but have heard the Pulsars and can't imagine how the Audience wouldn't do superbly.

I've had AZ Satoris and Audience AU24Es in my system as well (both shotgun biwire), and I was hard pressed to tell significant differences in my system. But my system for whatever reason doesn't seem to show differences in speaker cables as much as interconnects so fwiw. If Loftarasa is right the Audience might be a better choice since none of the components you have are known to be bright sounding so additional transparency may be a good thing. But there are so many other variables here (i.e. listener preference, room, etc.) I'm not sure how much even "informed" opinions will help here to be honest. Just as apt to be wrong as right in this situation.

If your client doesn't know all that much about audio or is not an audiophile I'd be surprised if he/she wasn't thrilled with the sound regardless of what cables you use given the nice components you've got there. I'm not a big fan of Cardas, but I spoke with Jeff Joseph at a show recently and he shared that they use Cardas for the internal wiring for their speakers (and at shows) so may be some synergy to be had there. You might give him a call and see what he would recommend. He's also used Hegel amplification (I think the H20) at shows so he might have some nice insights particularly for this system. Best of luck.

I'd go with Soix's recommendation, talk to Jeff Joseph for his opinion. And, as Soix mentioned, the customer is probably not going to be too fussy about this. Remember, they cannot audition a cable swap either...

-RW-

Great input from all of you! I greatly appreciate your taking the time to respond so fully. Thanks for all the advice.

Joseph dealer here (along with XLO).

I would suggest either the XLO or Cardas. XLO works great with Joseph (look at either the Ref or Sig series depending on price points). I've been very impressed with how nice the XLO's are.

Ironic that you should bring that up, Goldprintaudio. We've actually been looking quite closely at the XLO Signature 3 line and may indeed end up going that route. Thanks for the suggestion.