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Interconnect help for a NEUTRAL system

I need some suggestions for ic's for my current set-up.

I have all Sonic Frontiers tube gear from top to bottom, my speakers are Martin Logan's and my speaker cables are Cardas Golden Ref.

Sonic Frontiers stuff are known to have no sonic signature and their sound can be described as "boring" or "neutral."

Martin Logan's are a little bright and quite fast in the mid / high frequencies.

Should I stay away from NEUTRAL sounding ic cables, ie. Cardas cables? Since it's an all balanced system, I would like to stay with balanced interconnects.

Thanks for your input.
dogpile
twl
3,251 posts
 
In my opinion, Cardas cables are "warm" sounding, and not neutral. But they may offset some of the "brightness" of the ML's that you notice. Also, if you have a "brightness" situation, with the ML's, then it is probably best to stay away from silver, or silver-plated copper cables, and go with copper. I don't have any of the gear that you use, so I cannot make a specific recommendation that would be "known to work" in your application. There are many SF and ML users here, and I'm sure you'll hear from them. Good luck.
newbee
4,775 posts
 
I would describe the cardas in my system as neutral to slightlyly warm. it should not make your components sound bright. If you are trying to tame a bit of the brightness in the SF stuff you might try playing with the driver tubes in the amps. The sovtek 6922s are a bit on the cold/dry side of neutral.
tok20000's avatar
tok20000
608 posts
 
I'd give Nordost Quatrofil IC's a shot, if you can afford them. They work very well if you can spare the cash. These cables are fast, accurate, and very detailed. They are pretty neutral. I have had a SF3SE preamp (still have it, going to sell it soon), and the QF worked very well with it.

KF
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sonic_genius
528 posts
 
I own ML Requests and cable matching is important. I used to own SF gear, SFD-1 MII, Line-1, SFM160 amps. I got my best tweaks trying different tubes. I now own Krell gear and use Pure Note cables. As other posters say, Cardas is warm.
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