Digital Cable : Cardas Neutral Reference Vs Au24

My budget is about $500. I think I can get a Transparent Reference "used" for that price. I have heard good things about MC2 but isnt it silver :( . I am scared of Silver.

contempt prior to investigation either impedes or outright prevents, one from the discovery of truth.

Silver is not something to be scared about.

There's more to a cable than the materials. The whole of the process can allow for a silver wire to be quite the thing for a system, now and then, if not entirely.

It's easy to see or find various viewpoints alluding to silver as being zippy, zingy, thin or bright sounding, yet I've found this not always, if at all, the case.

The devices to which any cable attaches play as large a part in what sound is recreated as does the type of metal in the conducting cable, it's dialectic, and terminations.

Dismissing such 'made' cabling is like cutting one's nose off to spite their face. I've found generally speaking, I prefer a mix of copper and silver more often than not.

Truth be told here, purely silver conductors are not the norm in cabling. usually it's a silver over copper application instead. 100% silver, end to end including termination, I've not yet tried or seen. Albeit, there probably are some around... somewhere though I'd suspect them to be quite pricey too.

i auditioned a ton of digital cables earlier this year before i selected mine and found the mit proline digital reference to be my preference by far. the only better was the mit oracle ma-x. these bested the stealth mentioned above which i own as well. i have a friend who owns the acoustic revive and thinks highly of it.

I agree with Teejay, try the AZ cables even if you start with the Silver Byte version.

Surprising that there were not any comments on the ICs I have short listed :(. I thought these were pretty reputed ICs so I will get at least some opinions on how they sound and how they compare.