CARDAS Fans: Golden vs. Neutral vs. Presence?

Muralman1, it's entirely possible that it's MY system that is unbalanced and that the Golden Reference speaker cable brought it back to neutral. After all, what we are listening to is the TOTAL SUM of all our components. Faced with too many degrees of freedom, solutions are by necessity empirical only.

But I've dropped the apple many times and each time it falls to the ground in a predictable and correct way, so I believe the Golden Reference is a darn good cable. I'm sticking with it until I find better. Like many others here, I've tested many speaker cables too and I still stand by my comment that speaker cables can be sound grouped by the construction materials ie. pure copper or mixture or silver or gold etc. I would like to add one more significant cable sound contributor - the termination spade material - Rhodium or Silver oxide or Gold or ProGold. And what they are paired to on the speaker and amp terminations.

Not referring to anyone in particular, I find it amazing how audiophiles can pick one item in the equipment chain and make a great number of comments about it and say that it seems to make the difference between Day and Night when one should only be able to describe the CHANGE in sound perceived when the item is replaced and not make ABSOLUTE claims about the item. That's why ultimately it's the entire system all together not the individual components that matter the most. Perhaps I should have said that in MY particular system, the Speltzs, both speaker and balance ics, were ordinary.

Opus88, I use Harmonic Technology Magic Link 2s for all my interconnects. These are hybrid copper/silver designs and again I have yet to find better. I've gone through more cables than I can remember and there is no lending library where I am so it's all purchased between my hifi groupie and swapped around. Tested all kinds including gold hybrid but in my particular setup and system these are the bees knees! They don't make my system sound like playing with harsh silver cables but add just that touch of clarity and excitement in the music. And it's very extended at both ends. For phono cable, I use the original Linn Ittok arm's cable. Just got the old turntable working again after a long sleep and haven't had the time to mess around with it yet.

Vince and his ribbon cables.

How many threads is this posted in now?

Shout from the mountaintop.

Tell the world.

Re-inserted the Golden Ref. for the Speltz cable (between DAC and preamp), over a long listening session I realized how much more involving the Golden Ref. was. Now I'm not interested in re-inserting Speltz.

This tells me there is simply more resolution/detail with the GR in my system vs. the Speltz. The GR is more life-like, more image dimensionality and density, the Speltz is flatter more like hifi in my system. I suspect this very slight veiling is RFI, EMI issues.

Still, I would have to say the Speltz is a really nice cable for the money, if your cable budget is limited these are a nice choice.

I use the GR IC and the GP speaker. I love the synergy of the two and find the more revealing IC is where i needed to spend more money. I think it's interesting that several feel the GR to be colored when it is know to the industry as one of the most neutral cables made. I believe the problems arises in what you are used to hearing. IF you start with low end and work your way up the audio ladder of both cables and electronics then you change perspectives with each alteration. However, if you started out with top front end and amplification, speakers, and cables then you could truly judge small differences between cables. MHO.

One thing about the GR is according to the specs the capacitance is relatively very low. Most cable companies provide this spec for their ICs. I assume the lower the capacitance the more neutral it is. Of course like everything else the measurements provided by the vendor are not provided by a 3rd party.