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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
eniac26 OP
97 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
almarg
9,670 posts
 
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
 
lowrider57's avatar
lowrider57
5,418 posts
 
@garebear, The Cardas Clear were excellent, but beyond my budget, so I compared Clear Light to Purist Aqueous Aureus - Luminist (4 meter, $2200).
I auditioned ICs and speaker cables; I liked the smooth highs of the Purist.
eniac26 OP
97 posts
 
@almarg

Thanks for the detailed response Al. The increasing capacitance value does somewhat concern me in that when I go to purchase these cables I will actually need a 4m length in my setup. I borrowed the 3m length due to its immediate availability and just to get a taste of what they sounded like in my system.

In cases like my own is where knowing other cable brands capacitance value for the same length of cable would come in handy. If Brand X had a significantly lower capacitance and similar Inductance value as the Clear cables for the same 4m length it would certainly prompt me to give those a try as well before making a final decision to see how those lower values effect the sound.

There problem here is that I only know of 1 other brands who I would consider of the similar quality to the Clear who post actual cable specs (Nordst) but they aren't sold by the CableCo so demoing them wouldn't be an option. At these prices, that is not a gamble I am willing to take.

So I guess I can only cross my fingers that the additional 3ft of Cardas Clear that I need wont cause the SQ I heard with the shorter cable to decrease by a noticeable margin. I would like to believe that the added length wont make much of a difference compared to what I heard before.

Thanks
youngstown1969
9 posts
 
Cardas Clear rev1 2m speaker cables, 2 pair of Clear xlr cables, and all Clear Beyond powercords here.....get my vote*********
System: Magnepan 20.7's, Bryston 28sst2's,lumin A1 streamer, Blue Circle Pre.

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