Cardas Clear Reflection advice needed

@decooney 

I’ve taken a new approach with cables, I install them and let them run at low level for 24hrs before I sit down for my 1st listening (at night when my rig sounds best) and I’ll write down my initial impressions. After that I let them run for another 5 to 7 days before I’ll listen again and compare notes from the 1st listening. Personally, I can’t do a daily assessment with new gear, as I suck at detecting micro nuances. I’ve that found giving the cables a good 160 hours burn in provides a clearer sense of what they bring into the system.

@decooney  It's been a while since I added Clear Reflection ICs to my system, and I don't recall specifics of the sound during break-in. Cardas cables do have a reputation for requiring fairly long break-in periods. I do remember that the ups and downs with my cables smoothed out after a few weeks. Even near the beginning, I did not have the urge to pull them out of the system since they brought a certain "rightness" to the sound.

@sdl4 @jl1ny Thanks for the updates you guys. Translates to my reality as well, same with these as all other Cardas I’ve owned past 25+ yrs while these are a little more clear in a nice way yet retaining some of the body and characteristics we mentioned before. @sdl4 what you said was key and resonated with me, i.e. "until I realized that I wasn’t listening to music quite as frequently as I had been". This happened over the years for me too, moving in different direction trying different ICs. Finding the right balance between totally transparent with "do no harm" vs something that’s extra engaging to the point where you want to "keep listening" is always a target goal. Its been fun rediscovering some of the same old familiar trails once again, Thx :)

@decooney  There's an interesting Youtube interview with Angela Cardas from 2018 on John Darko's site:  

In the last couple minutes of the video, Angela tells about her experience with temporarily replacing the Clear Reflection cables in her home system with the top-of-the-line Clear Beyond cables - and begging to get the CR cables back into her system asap. She still likes the Clear Beyonds in the right room with the right equipment, but for her preferences and her home set-up, she prefers the CR for listening to music.