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Initial disappointment with 1st set of “expensive’ IC’s...

I’ve been slow working my way to equipping my rig with all Cardas as I’ve been fan of their quality/sound signature an for a long time. I just received 2 sets of Clear Light IC’s which I’m using DAC to Pre and Pre to Amp. up until now all other Cardas cables that I have were obtained used and sounded great from day 1. The Clear Light however are brand new..when I sat down to give them a listen I was surprised not to hear any improvement...I was actually disappointed to hear what I can describe as a fatter bass and subdued upper end. My prior IC’s were Shirokazu Yazaki Belden 8402. I admittedly do not have golden ears but the difference was obvious. I’m interested to hear what other Cardas owners have to say about how their cables sounded when 1st installed. 
jl1ny
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tomic601
13,165 posts
 
Ray - grace and peace brother.
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jl1ny OP
419 posts
 
@raysmtb1I fully believe that there is a point of diminishing returns...with the resolution of a $60K rig, I can’t see how changing any piece of gear in that tier could make an audible difference. But with a system such as mine why wouldn’t an upgrade be audible? Makes sense no?

Sidebar- I went toe 2 toe with cancer and won. Stay strong and keep fighting the good fight brother.
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raysmtb1
808 posts
 
Thanks everyone for the kind wishes. It means a lot there’s too much bad this gets tossed around on this site
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jl1ny's avatar
jl1ny OP
419 posts
 
@dletch2

Well, returning them is not an option (private sale) Cardas is a top notch manufacturer and while it’s possible that the QC could be off on one or both sets of the cables I’d say it’s most likely not the issue. It could very well be that the Cardas just sound like crap in my rig. I’m kicking around the idea of doing a A/B test by having a friend swap the cables (or not) with my Shirokazu Yazaki Belden 8402’s and see If I can tell the difference. I think I could easily detect the difference right now so I’d want more time with the Cardas before I do that just to see if it changes or appears to have changed...So if it’s a crap sounding cable then it should continue to sound that way and I should be able to detect it’s offensiveness compared to the Belden a week or month from now. Correct?
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