Yikes, with all due respect, I question the hearing of some of the posters, but to each his own.
I've had all three Cardas Reference. The Neutral I didn't like at all. It was thin, could sound shrill, the bass was nothing to brag about, neither was the soundstage.
Going to the Golden Presence and Golden Reference is entering another world. This nonsense about being dark and the other criticisms is as far from the truth as can be. Some of you want overdetailed, thinned out sound. The Cardas are natural sounding, yet manage to have much detail. Best to wash your ears out or get a hearing test if you think these obscure detail. I've had silver cables in my system, and they have added a bit more detail, but at the expense of brightness and thinness, some better than others. Perhaps with slow sounding tube equipment such compensation of hyperdetailed interconnects that have thin body would compliment such a system.
Listening to many cables compared to the Cardas Reference (GP or GR) is like listening to a table radio compared to an audiophile system. Do you want body that fills out the images, instead of stripping them of harmonics and creating flat, thinned out voices and instruments? You get this with the Cardas.
There are too many cable 'experts' out there who seem to think they know what music sounds like. Ask someone who plays a musical instrument which sounds more real to them - Cardas or Nordost, for an example.
The problem is the flavor of the month/year club with cables. Cardas got the recipe right, so they don't need constant model updates. I've owned a number of cables mentioned in this thread, and nothing has satisfied like the Cardas Golden Presence or Golden Reference. That's all I use.
I've had all three Cardas Reference. The Neutral I didn't like at all. It was thin, could sound shrill, the bass was nothing to brag about, neither was the soundstage.
Going to the Golden Presence and Golden Reference is entering another world. This nonsense about being dark and the other criticisms is as far from the truth as can be. Some of you want overdetailed, thinned out sound. The Cardas are natural sounding, yet manage to have much detail. Best to wash your ears out or get a hearing test if you think these obscure detail. I've had silver cables in my system, and they have added a bit more detail, but at the expense of brightness and thinness, some better than others. Perhaps with slow sounding tube equipment such compensation of hyperdetailed interconnects that have thin body would compliment such a system.
Listening to many cables compared to the Cardas Reference (GP or GR) is like listening to a table radio compared to an audiophile system. Do you want body that fills out the images, instead of stripping them of harmonics and creating flat, thinned out voices and instruments? You get this with the Cardas.
There are too many cable 'experts' out there who seem to think they know what music sounds like. Ask someone who plays a musical instrument which sounds more real to them - Cardas or Nordost, for an example.
The problem is the flavor of the month/year club with cables. Cardas got the recipe right, so they don't need constant model updates. I've owned a number of cables mentioned in this thread, and nothing has satisfied like the Cardas Golden Presence or Golden Reference. That's all I use.