Merlin vsm mme owners, Cardas cabling Question.

I recently acquired Merlin VSM-mme's, which are driven by a modified Pathos TT RR, with a Modwright-Sony 5400ES front end, and Bybee Power Purifier 'Stealth' AC power conditioner. I tried many different cables with this setup including Cardas Golden Reference (have not tried Clear). The Cardas cables were not in the top three based on my listening and the ears of several audiophile friends. I settled on the extraordinarliy transparent Cerious Nano Reference speaker cables with Harmonix HS-101GP or Vitus Andromeda (have both) interconnects. I have Isoclean Supreme Focus, Lessless Signature, Kubala Sosna Emotion, and Audio Magic Clairvoyant Liquid Air AC cords. This cable combination blew away an all Cardas loom, and the substitution of one or several Cardas Golden Reference cables cleary degraded the sound.

your comments pertain to this system only. i hope you realize this. and you and your tastes.
how old were the gr's and are they the real mcoy?
were the golden ref's cold forged?
bobby p

Yes, my comments only pertain to my system. Don't know the age of the GR's I listened to, but they belonged to audiophile club members/friends who bought them from dealers so I assume they were authentic.

were they cold forged?
if you ever get the master bam and master rc mod which is talked to you about (which you should have done before the wire shootout) the end result may have been different. the masters add gobs of body, clearity and expanse. then you would have had a better idea of which cable is the most neutral.
also remember no wire fits everyones taste and that the mme is somewhat detuned from the mxe, mx-r and master vsm. my recs are meant more in concert with these models.
but have fun.
bobby p

I'm not surprised that the GR didn't make the cut. I always found them to be too much of a good thing with Merlin. For me, the Clear's didn't help either. Again, too much of a good thing and there's only so warm and smooth you can get before you start losing track of finer detail. After swapping in 2 dozen or more cables between a Filarmonia and Merlin speakers, I found that cables that either de-emphasized the mid range, or at least didn't pump it up more, worked best. YMMV. Personally, I opted for WyWires for a more linear, more extended and more dynamic sound, but Nordost was a lot of fun too.