Cardas Audio Clear 3 Meter Speaker Cables

On offer: A pristine pair of Cardas Clear 3.0M speaker cables with 6mm forged billet copper spade connectors. These are wonderfully superior cables, legendary for their ability to provide stunning performance improvements to already high end, high performance and high resolution systems. Fully utilizing the "Golden Reference" conductor to insulator relationship understanding that certified George Cardas' true genius, the "Clear" series has been described as being his "crowning achievement". 

This pair is made available due to the owner having implemented a total system upgrade at ludicrous expense. The replacement speaker cables alone (Ansuz Diamond) were over 3X expenditure over the Cardas Clear.

From Stereophile:       

"The initial setup consisted of a borrowed Einstein tube hybrid integrated amplifier and a Wadia 861 SE CD player, both of which I was familiar with. Interconnects and speaker cables started out as MIT Merlin M1 and MH-770 CVTerminator. Replacing the older and less expensive MITs with Cardas Clear speaker cables ($6600/12' pair terminated in spades, footnote 3) resulted in not at all what I had expected. Perhaps the name Clear had led me to expect a more pronounced treble. Instead, what I heard was the biggest improvement in bass extension I have ever heard from a speaker-cable substitution. And that was with stone-cold new cables. With break-in, the top became noticeably more open, but the biggest changes were even more bass—about two or three more bass notes from pipe organs, it seemed—a much lower noise floor, and spooky resolution." 
Read more at http://www.stereophile.com/content/fifth-element-62-page-3#foOVucIpOYTRq3sw.99

From Stereophile Recommended Components:

"Cardas Clear: $5500/3.5m pair, terminated in spades"
JM was most impressed by the Cardas Clear’s low-frequency clarity and resolution, finding the Clear to give two or three more bass notes on a pipe organ, with a lower noise floor and “spooky” resolution compared with his reference MIT MH-770 CVTerminator cables. “The best-sounding cables I have heard,” he concluded. JA agrees that these are fine-sounding cables."

(Vol.33 No.10 Read Review Online) Read more at http://www.stereophile.com/content/2012-recommended-components-cables#pCafoVo4tGr4IFRg.99

From Hifi+ (UK):

"The thick, blue cable represents George Cardas’ crowning achievement, and takes all the company’s patented technologies found on Cardas already-well-respected ranges of Litz-design cables to new levels. In essence, Clear takes the tried and trusted geometry of the Golden Reference cable; including ‘Golden Section’, multi-gauge stranding in a symmetrical, helical tri-axial design and ‘Constant-Q’ construction, which places the smallest strands of the cable at the centre of the conductor to reduce stored energy and conductor resonance. Cable resonance is further reduced with what Cardas terms ‘controlled propagation’ and ‘crossfield’ construction, which means matching conductor to dielectric characteristics by using carefully computed strand layering.  What this means in simple terms is Cardas slowly builds up strand-upon-strand of increasingly larger low-eddy copper wire, until the inside of each conductor looks like a little copper nautilus shell in cross-section. This is then thrice-shielded and coated in its own dielectric and these conductors then form their own Golden Section layout, alongside Teflon pipes creating a useful dielectric of air.

Clear takes this already demanding construction to obsessive-compulsive levels. The geometry has been improved still further, to produce an ultra-fine tubular construction. It still retains the basic Cardas DNA, copper conductors, Teflon and air dielectric, rhodium-based connectors, but each and every aspect of the cable have been modified in the process.

Nothing is left to chance at Cardas. For the record, some companies buy cable off the shelf, some ‘roll their own’, but Cardas takes the long route. The cables are actually drawn and annealed from copper rod using the company’s own equipment – because most commercially available copper was not of sufficient quality to make it to high-end cables. Let’s face it, any company so determined that it buys its own foundry to make its own cables, is going the distance; even Jamie Oliver doesn’t go as far as owning his own farms. Even this wasn’t enough for Clear though. George Cardas went back to first principles, discovering new insights into metallurgy and the relationship between conductor and dielectric in the process.

Here’s what we mean. Cardas traditionally uses its Eutectic Solder to connect the loudspeaker cable to the spade lug. Not so with Clear; instead, there’s a new forging process, which means Cardas forges the spade lug directly, joins the lug to the cable by further compression forging, which crimps metal on metal so powerfully it’s almost impossible to think in terms of separate pieces of metal.  Of course, this does make the spade lugs difficult to use in some quarters – they don’t like WBT terminals, for example – but the connection is as good as it gets.

If you are going through a radical series of upgrades, moving from a high end to a very, very high-end system, Clear could be your first ‘super-serious’ purchase. It’s like setting a neutral point of reference in the wiring, ticking off one of the many boxes in advance of the next series of big purchases. I’d guess Clear is unlikely to be many people’s first cable; they will have risen through the ranks. If so, there is a high likelihood that people will have had some experience with Cardas cables before. Clear represents the best of Cardas, so if you are already impressed with Cardas but want more, Clear could be the first, ‘last’ upgrade you make, sure in the knowledge that however high up the audiophile ladder you climb, Clear will be there, waiting for you to catch up. Little wonder that George Cardas considers this his “most enduring statement.” And it is." 

From Signature Sound:

"Signature Sound has been a Cardas Audio dealer for close to 20 years and feature Cardas Clear cables in our reference system and can vouch first hand for its outstanding performance. While not inexpensive, Cardas Clear series cables offer performance better than a number of extremely expensive cables we have heard. Termination on the Cardas Clear and Cardas Clear Beyond cables uses no solder!!! Very high pressure cold forged crimped connections (using custom connectors and tooling developed by George Cardas) make for a perfect copper to copper connect between wire and connector.

Cardas Clear Speaker Cables are the outgrowth of years of intense refinements to every aspect of speaker cable design. New metallurgical drawing and refining techniques have yielded a new, extremely low eddy current copper. The geometry is a perfect mirror, matched propagation design that is as near to perfection as any ever envisioned. The connectors and the connection techniques are, without a doubt, the best ever devised. Clear Speaker cable is perfect for most amplifier/speaker combinations."

- Outside Diameter: .600 Dielectric
- Type: Teflon® 
- Inductance: .0176 uh/ft/loop
- Capacitance: 278 pf pf/ft 
- Bi Wire Option: No  
- Cable AWG: 7.5 Conductor
- Type: Perfect Mirror Quadaxial   

Cardas Clear manufacturer's webpage: http://www.cardas.com/clear_sp.php   

Payment accepted via Certified Check or Money Order.  Shipping included (US domestic only).