Johnny Cash's cover of "Hurt" turned out so good that the Nine Inch Nails front man who wrote it many years earlier said that the song is no longer his. Both the video and Cash's voice are as mesmerizing as they're sad and painful. At least that's the effect this monumental recording has on me. Each time after experiencing it, I need a moment to get my act together. It's impressive how many contradicting and strong emotions one singer and two instruments can invoke. Cash's every word has tremendous weight while the acoustic guitar and piano which follow are as powerful. The C-MARC rendered this substantial, vibrant and potent without subtracting character. The Erys cable sounded shinier, thinner, somewhat happier, less resonant and not as majestic. The magnitude of these changes was the clincher. By now it should be apparent which interconnect scored higher on instrumental structures and artful vocals.

It's tempting to press on with my daily musical diet and add words on Wardruna, Dead Can Dance, Blixa Bargeld, Mike Oldfield, Colin Stetson or Swans and then throw in several guilty pleasures from the metal realm but let's stop here. The above selection showed rather well how the Entropic-processed LessLoss went about its business. This cable is geared for a particularly fetching silence and associated spatial blackness upon which all else blossoms. It doesn't flaunt any specific features other than this but if applied this generously, it's in fact more than enough to elevate the performance of the vast majority of setups I can think of while keeping any listening fatigue locked safely away. C-MARCs by default are tonally even and predictable so any risk of a mismatch is vanishingly low. Audio systems abnormally thick, slow and fuzzy perhaps would benefit more from cables tailored specifically for lucidity, openness and speed but that's about it. In this context today's product isn't designed to repair but rather support a system's signature sonics to preserve and cherish its character.

I've used various C-MARC cables for some three years to be keepers for a few reasons. As a professional reviewer, I appreciate their universal usage and a loaner from LessLoss not fit for this purpose is yet to come. More importantly, these Lithuanian cables and filters have worked extremely well in my main system. My LampizatOr Pacific DAC, Boenicke W11 SE+ floorstanders and sound|kaos Vox 3afw monitors lean towards luminosity, quickness and openness. Trilogy's 915R/995R pre/power set is in large part voiced the opposite and the Innuos Statement falls roughly in-between. Their mixed flavors form a delicate equilibrium maintained by accessories and cables such that in sum they don't steer towards more clarity at a cost of body or vice versa. For me it's a matter of keeping this overall balance as is or increase its potency without any penalties. In that context, today's very organic and resolving cable did a splendid job. Just as its siblings, it didn't demand anything in return for its arsenal of universally useful traits and proved far less situational than most cables I've come across. Its wooden laser-engraved bullets turn it into a gorgeous looker that's exceptionally slinky so very easy to use. Inveterate cable swappers will appreciate its obedient behavior. All that however still doesn't quite capture what kind of product this truly is.

Audiomica's hotter, more adolescent less even-keeled cable was a punching bag for today's C-MARC which scored far more points on ease, detail retrieval, smoothness, colour range, ambience, tangibility, control and dynamic contrasts. Its superiority across pretty much the gamut wasn't exactly a shock. It had a profound impact on my system by being spatially gifted, properly radiant, sensual, articulate and earthy at the same time. After recently witnessing what the Entropic Process did for the LessLoss power cable, I can happily report that the same aging therapy applied to low-level signals is no less spectacular!