Merlin vsm mme owners, Cardas cabling Question.

Pubul... you may be right regarding Atma..... sorry... i was too excited with those cables....( i am still excited..)

Bobby My merlins...BAM ...and Fila are lead free.....may be MMe are softer sounding and thats the reason i like siltech cables

I think the Fila/Merlin combo is world-class and a no-brainer recommendation for a relatively low-cost SOTA system. Certainly a get-off-the-merry-go-round system. I miss the Fila, but as you can see, I have a bit too much equipment to have kept it.

Bobbyalkovic - When I got my Ayre equipment...V1xe amp, K1xe preamp, and C5xemp Silver disc player, I was advised by Ayre itself that Ayre/Cardas cables were the best, so I completely wired the system with the Ayre cables. The cables were in for about 7 or 8 months when a friend brought over a balanced Purist Anniversary interconnect. The difference was screamable. When I went to my dealer, he insisted Cardas was right, and gave me every Cardas balanced interconnect and speaker cable he had to try. They all sounded similarly bad. As I mentioned before, it closed in the sound, became grainy, brown in character, etc. Every cable I substituted sounded better. The best cables by far was Audioquest Sky/Everest and AntiCables. They sounded similar, but I nor anyone I asked could say which ones sounded better, so I did the system in Anti-Cables. I am using Vandersteen 5A speakers, and the sound is wonderful. I would guess that Cardas can sound good in the right system, but mine wasn't right for Cardas. The very worst cable - the ones that ruined the sound completely were the Cardas power cords.

stingreen, your thoughts prove my point.
audioquest is recommended for vandies and anti's have a similar way about them. no wonder you liked them too.
i would not recommend cardas for a vandy system no matter what electronics were being used.
always use the right tool for the right job.
b

Stringreen: I had a similar experience. I have great respect for George and Colleen Cardas, but after I got rid of my Merlin speakers and bought Dunlavys I had no idea how good they were until I got some different cables. Apparently the Cardas (Golden Cross) cables act as a required filter for the Merlins -- or at least the VSM SE. But experiences vary.