Long-term Review: Cardas Clear Light Speaker Cable
This ainât your grandpaâs Cardas.
The year is... I canât even remember, maybe 2012? I was writing for Bound for Sound magazine (BFS) and running my trusty Merlin TSM speakers with a variety of solid state amplifiers and cables, and while there was much to love about this setup, body and warmth were lacking. Merlin's brilliant and dearly-departed designer Bobby Palkovic never stopped reminding me his speakers were best with tube amps and Cardas cables (which he used internally and for jumpers) and he kept urging me to give them a try. I demurred, telling him I hadnât been a fan of the âCardas soundâ in the past... but an encounter with a friendâs Quadlink 5Câs had me reconsidering. So I put in a call to Cardas to see what they recommended, and they were gracious enough to provide a pair of their recently-introduced Clear Light speaker cables.
The following years are a blur... BFS stopped publishing a short time later, and the Cardas review was put on hold. But I still kept using those cables, and after years of building guilt I finally sat down to do a write-up about them. Cardas, if youâre still listening - thank you for letting me hang onto them, and mea culpa. Better late than never, right...? đ
The Clear Light was introduced as a, well, lighter version of their high-end Clear cable. At the time, I believe it retailed around $900 a 1.5m pair - a bit less than half as much as its big brother. This put it in what I would call the âentry luxuryâ segment of cables, sorta like a BMW 3 series or Audi A4. The newest version of the cable is called the Clear Cygnus; from their website:
In 2017, Cygnus took the place of Clear Light, being the result of a redesign that turned out to be fitting of a new product launch. Cygnus, unlike its predecessor, can be internally bi-wired.
So this review is more than a bit late to the party, but my long-term experience with the Clear Light has been noteworthy and speaks to a fascinating evolution in the Cardas sound over the years.
Then...
Why hadnât I been a fan of Cardas in the past? I had tried a few of their entry to mid-level cables - Twinlink, Quadlink, Hexlink, Golden Presence, probably others. Cardas had always been known for their smooth, relaxed character and synergy with tube equipment, neither of which are quite my cup of tea. Many of their older models also had quite high capacitance which IMO tended to kill the life of the sound with many components. So yeah, I had a bit of bias against the brand.
For reference, other cables I had tried with the Merlin speakers included the original AntiCables, the original Analysis Plus oval, Signal Cable, an older Synergistic reference cable, JPS Labs Ultraconductor and the BFS âLoweâs Specialâ DIY cables which had handily bested many of the former. But it was always tricky with the Merlins and solid state amps - you wanted something that retained their speed, transparency and immediacy, but with sufficient midrange body and warmth. In terms of tonal balance, the Synergistic faired the best, and was what I was using when the Cardas arrived.
Dropping the Clear Lights into the system, at the time with an April Music Stello Ai500 integrated, quickly dispelled my biases. Cardas was not kidding with the model name - these were easily the most transparent and detailed cables I had yet heard in my system, with a judicious touch of the trademark Cardas warmth and body in the midrange that my system was craving. Most striking was the newfound sense of pulse and rhythm. Maybe this is what the Brits call PRAT, but it wasnât about bass clarity or tautness per se; it was more about allowing the subtle undulations of an accompaniment to pulsate and flow in perfect balance with a tune.
A classic scene from the movie Amadeus.
A perfect example: the Adagio from Mozart "Gran Partita" wind serenade, made famous in the movie Amadeus. I still vividly recall putting on a favorite recording by the Berlin Philharmonic wind ensemble (Tidal) and being floated away by the lullaby-like quality of the accompaniment - the ârusty squeezeboxâ as Salieri calls it. The oboe solo was also more striking, breaths and phrases feeling more tactile and tone having a little more sheen. Bobby was right - his speakers really do click with Cardas wire, and I had never heard the TSM's sing so freely in my system.
Other material showed no lack of slam or extension either. Though the Merlins were light in the bass, their sealed-box design meant there's some meaningful output down to 40Hz, and the Clear Lights made the best of it with an articulate and balanced bottom end. Large orchestral works had nice scale and weight, and the soundstage was expansive and well-delineated - close-mic'ed material sounded up front and present while mid-hall orchestral recordings had plenty of ambience. And most importantly to me, there was none of the undue warmth and dullness that bothered me with past Cardas cables - leading edges were sharp and dynamics popped without overshooting. All in all, the Clear Lights were clearly (ha) the best speaker cables in my system to that date.
... and now.
Fast forward several years. The Merlins have been replaced by Audiovector SR 1 Avantgarde Arreté and Silverline SR17 Supreme, with a rotation of amps from Ayre, Bryston and Valvet. The front end has also been substantially upgraded with the PS Audio DirectStream DAC and Pass XP10 preamp, and competition at vastly different price points has arrived in the form of Audience Au24 SX ($3,290, 2.5m pair) and DH Labs Silver Sonic Q-10 Signature ($450, 8ft pair).
The Audience Au24 SX has a level of refinement that neither of the other cables can match, hardly surprising at 3x to 7x the price. It's oh-so-silky smooth, stripping away layers of noise and grain within and between the notes and leaving behind the purest, most natural instrumental timbres I've heard in my system. By comparison, the Cardas has a bit of a grittier texture, particularly in the upper midrange, and a more up-front presentation. With some speaker/amp combos this was beneficial - e.g. with the Silverline Minuet Grand ($1,999) and Ayre AX7e integrated, the Cardas struck just the right balance of body and presence, making the Audience sound a little too laid back by comparison. I also found the heavier 9.5AWG conductors of the Cardas allowed the Bryston 4B Cubed amp to get a better grip on the Audiovector SR 1 Avantgarde Arreté speakers ($5200) than the comparatively light-gauge Audience. Overall the Cardas put up a very respectable showing against the superb Audience cables, in line with my expectations given the price difference.
The DH Labs Q-10 was a fascinating and far closer comparison. The Q-10 is just as clean as the Cardas - perhaps even more so - with a slightly more direct character that is on the up-front side of neutral. Its silver-plated copper conductors give it extra sheen vs. the pure-copper Cardas and Audience, which could go in either direction depending on your system. With a mellow amp and a smooth speaker it could be just the thing to inject some life; but pairing with a hot tweeter and bright solid state amp could be downright painful. The Cardas feels like it would be more amenable to a wider range of systems, and it has a bit more midrange dimensionality and soundstage depth. The DH Labs counters with terrific bass punch and super-crisp transients that always sound controlled. Overall I had a slight preference for the Cardas in most setups, but the DH Labs hung in there pretty well and is a superb value.
Usage Notes
The Cardas is just thick enough to impress your audiophile friends and confuse your gardener without being unwieldy, and its rubber-finish jacket is flexible and easily handled. Over the course of years of heavy usage (lots of connect/disconnect cycles and being thrown around) it's held up well, the only obvious sign of wear being the conductors on one end starting to pull out of the collet - not particularly dangerous since all Cardas conductors are insulated litz (magnet) wire, but something you'll want to take care with. (I hear Cardas has excellent factory service, so likely they'd repair it at reasonable cost.)
Little bit of wear and tear showing...
My pair was terminated with Cardas's machined rhodium-plated spades. I have never been a fan of big audio jewelry connectors, preferring unassuming low-mass ones that ironically enough have become all the rage the last 10-15 years. That said, these spades are fantastic. They are the perfect shape and size to fit most any binding post I've come across, including those pesky EU-compliant ones, and for whatever reason - perhaps the rhodium plate and precise machining - they slide effortless in and out of binding posts and tighten more readily and securely than any other spade I've used. I always know I'm getting a secure fit, and I never have to fidget with or retighten them later as I do with most every other spade I've used. Bravo, Cardas.
Conclusion
I've had an extremely positive ownership experience with the Cardas Clear Light speaker cables over the years, and it remains a staple in my bin o' cables. They opened my ears to the virtues of the Cardas sound, delivering much of the brand's famed dimensionality, body and musical flow balanced with a high level of clarity, transparency and directness. While they had exceptional synergy with my Merlin speakers, they worked with a wide variety of gear and were a delight to handle. I would stick to using them with a system that's already fairly neutral and balanced - true to their name, they aren't going to obscure or romanticize anything. I haven't heard its successor, the Clear Cygnus, but I imagine it should deliver a similar if not greater level of listening satisfaction. Recommended!
