cardas golden cros vs golden reference

For speaker cable ONLY !
I agree with all of them.
I used to have Hexlink Golden 5C, Golden Cross, SE 9 & on loan for 3 weeks the Golden Ref.
The later is the best but very expensive.
The Hexlink Golden 5C is the real treasure. The perfect medicine for agressive or thin sound. An absolute calming delight.
You may give a chance to SE 9 as is the more energetic with more dynamic projection of the rest, but is expensive also & somewhat restricted in bass.
I would not advice for the Golden Cross. It has limited focus & bass & is a little laidback.
All of them has very wide soundstage, silky detail upon a full but not speedy foundation.
I find out a fine synergy with Van Den Hul The Second but I would suggest a try with the new The Orchid as it is way better in everything while is keeping the carbon character.

Jmlab926,
True but I feel is too hot in that topic for me to comment there. In my case the Nordost SPM REF. was on the opposite side : completely flat & uninvolving & it seems to me as a faillure attempt by it's designer to catch the perfect achromatic monitor cable. Instead of this, it perceived by my set-up as a balanced but lean, flat & emotionless, (by saying balanced I mean that the leanness was spread across the whole spectrum) unable to move my senses and as such, I find it as an unreasonable & worthless effort. I didn't hear more detail, just less of everything else !
I'm sorry for avoiding reply there, but I'm doing the same where in the fields of VPIs, Sonus Fabers, Koetsus, Benz, & some others, in the fear of ... admiers may want to eat me alive.
I cannot accept the logic that we can find the perfect achromatic "invisible" anything. All we can do, is to search for an aesthetic view of calming completeness that engage our emotions.

George