Well, I am done evaluating the
Cardas Golden Reference in my system.
It's been a while since I've had the Cardas cables in my system. Many years ago I used to use the Golden Cross and thought they were great cables to take the edge off digital playback with a warmish overall tonality a relaxed top end. Many systems could have used that cable back in the day.
The Golden Reference is definitely a more "neutral" sounding cable. I still couldn't help to notice the "house sound" or similarities of the Golden Reference to the older Cardas cables. The slight rounding and smoothing of the
leading edge of transients, the greater emphasis on "decay" and
trailing edge of transients. Quite the opposite of the AQ cables I had in my system and compared them to.
Bass was very well resolved, textured and organic sounding if not the last word in slam and depth, again, probably due to the rounding off the leading edge of transients. The rimshots were slightly softer sounding, a bit "muted", acoustic bass/double bass instruments were reproduced with enough resolution to follow the individual notes without clumping them together but there was a bit of blurring of the individual notes down low.
Midrange is probably the strongest point of these cables, conveying the emotional content of vocals and capturing the subtle details of the vocal changes that make singers more "human". The stringed instruments also benefited from the all important midrange as did the piano recordings, coming across as pure in tone and having a sparkle that had some nice golden overtones and an emphasis on the subtle decay information as it faded into the silence of the black background. Gone was the upper midrange leanness that existed with AQ cables and replaced with a touch of lower mid warmth, highlighting the male vocals and the power of a deeper, huskier voice of many male singers.
Highs were quite nice with these cables, enough energy was passed on to the speakers where the sonic signature remained open, transparent and crystal clear but without an over emphasis that often makes the system sound a bit over the edge in perceived resolution, edginess and aggression. The overall response up top was delicate enough to give the system a golden shimmer from the high hats, with enough bite from the horn sections up top but just enough to make the instruments sound natural without artificial "coldness" or "aggressiveness". Delicate and smooth with enough detail would sum it up nicely. Compared to the more energetic top end of AQ's, the Cardas made many recordings a bit more enjoyable and relaxed without rolling the highs off to a point of boredom or a sense of missing top octave air.
Soundstage was just as generous as the other cables in this shootout but Cardas did manage to portray a very palpable presentation and placement of instruments/layering front to back as well as side to side.
Resolving but smooth enough to take the edge off, neutral and transparent enough to capture the detail and subtle acoustic cues from live recordings and the space they were recorded in, conveying much of the emotional content of the recorded vocals and instruments, these Cardas cables re-created a very believable soundstage with neutrality that let the music flow in a very organic way, allowing one to relax and listen without too much attention to any particular aspect of your playback system.
I'd say that their "Neutrality with a golden sprinkle of warmth in the lower mids and a more delicate top end" let me enjoy my system quite a bit more than the AQ cables.
In their price range, they should be a "must audition" cable.
