Price Paid:  $0.00 from Galen Carol Audio

Summary:
The Golden Presence speaker cable has had over three months in my tube based system feeding speakers of my own design (Focal & Scanspeak). The differences over the previous Discovery 1-2-3 cables are worth reporting on. Several years ago the Discovery 1-2-3 was (and still could be) the most musical and neutral speaker cable I found in the $300 to $500 price range for 8 ft. cables. It's hard to pass along subjective comments when the reference system is self designed and built, except for source components and cables. But, I attend a lot of jazz and classical concerts and have listened to a few cost no object systems at dealer listening rooms over the past 25 years (Wilson Audio MAXX for example). Compared to Audioquest Midnight (several years back) and the Discovery cable, the Cardas Golden Presence has a rich but detailed sound with a great deal of palpability across the entire frequency range. I did compare the Golden Presence with Cardas Cross and the GP is more neutral and detailed. With the GP I do not feel that any musical detail is missing. Mid and high frequencies are a joy. Acoustic bass and piano are rich in harmonics much like live music. The cable works fine out of the box, but after a couple hundred hours of use, it delivered all that I could ask for in a quality cable and then some. GP did not leave me wanting more dynamics, treble smoothness, bass detail / fullness, or other sonics.

BTW, try the Cardas Golden Ratio capacitors for more of that 3 dimensional sound and refinement.

Have fun!
Mike

Strengths:
Rich in tone
3D sound
musical detail in mids
realistic bass
treble refinement

Weaknesses:
perhaps cost