Hi Baz...
Got your email. I'd go for the Lapis - if those lengths work for you, that seems like a good deal. Plus if you ever needed to sell them, I feel confident you could do so quickly and you'd get all or most of your money back. Yes.. The Lapis was discontinued by Audioquest, you are correct. This is not to say it is a bad cable. Rumor has it that Audioquest is repackaging their previous generation cables, using copper instead of silver and duplicating the same wire strand configuration. This reduces their costs significantly. The previous "Lapis era" generation of Audioquest cables is one of the companys finest. Todays equal to Lapis is Anaconda. Anaconda is a pure copper cable. The only silver I/C in the AQ line up today is Amazon.
If I remember correctly, the Lapis is a 1500 per meter cable - retail.
Cardas Neutral Reference is a good cable but it is nothing special or outstanding... heck.. it is not even neutral. I think the Neutral implies how it "sounds the same in any length"... or something like that. It's a punchy cable but clearly - if you go Cardas, get the Golden Reference for you Krell.
Bryan
