Cardas Clear Reflection advice needed

Thanks for thoughtful response . Have you compared Clear Cygnus to Clear Reflection?

@williampowell yes, and own Clear Ref now for interconnects. For me It had to do more with matching up my particular input/output tube selection and coupling caps I run in my DAC, preamp, and amplifiers though. Re-cabling again came last. I was a former old diehard user for a decade+ of Golden Cross years ago, so it was more of a succession kind of thing to end up with Clear Refs. Either Cygnus or Clear Ref would have worked nicely though. I still use different Cardas Cross bi-wire cables for my main speakers primarily, so no valid or helpful comparisons to share there for you though. In your case maybe Cygnus would work nicely.

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.