Differences btw Blue Heaven & Red Dawn?

I have been recently trying several of the Nordost cables. The general flavour is a stripped-down leanness that may appear beneficial in a system that is otherwise too warm or muffled. This leanness makes dynamic contrasts stand out, but Carl may have a point that there is not enough conductor for a speaker cable. I don't know how many of you are old enough to remember the British fad a decade or so ago for very thin conductors - the sound can be refreshingly stripped-down, for a while, then you realise that there is too much that is missing. The Blue Heaven is almost to the point of being glarey, the Red Dawn is just plain lean. Incredibly (given its price) the SPM has the same leanness, just less of it, but more refinement. I note the TAS review mentioned SPM was very slightly lean - but this seems to be a considerable understatement to me. The TAS review also suggested replacing the Neutrik RCAs - something I agree with. I have used Neutriks a lot in the past and eventually realised that the design was compromised (the sliding earth arrangement) and degraded the sound (even though they were beautifully made).

I'm no expert on Neutrik, I know that they're the preferred connector brand in the pro sound world, and they make the multipin "EP" connectors for sound reinforcement speakers......What I meant about Nordost, is that there's very little conductor there, for what you PAY for. BH 16 gauge, RD 14, SPM 12. There's nearly twice as much parallel conductor area in my AT Dragon (those are solid core silver), and yet the price is only like 20% more. I realize there are an extreme number of other factors at play, I'm only talking conductors (since they're usually the costliest part of the cable...but not always). I also realize that Nordost makes claims about the speed at which electricity is propogated through their cable, and that they have a special process for coating the copper conductors with silver (among other complexities). Their philosophy is higher resistance for minimum capacitance, it seems to me. This can make a cable very "fast", but not "dynamic", unless there are other factors at play, like termination networks............David, I have no idea how your Tara Labs sound, much less in your system. I've tried a lot of cables lately, but have not been able to get any of the Tara Labs ones that I'd like to try. I've never heard anything bad about the lower priced ones, and have heard both bad and good about their more costly lines, like Decade.

Carl, Neutrik make very good AES/EBU connectors, but I was referring to their RCA connectors, which have a protruding earth shield, which makes contact before the hot pin. This is nice if you like changing cables while your stereo is on. But the outer shield is designed to retract as you push the pin in place, and this is achieved by spring-loading. I am leaping to a conclusion that it is the poor electrical integrity of this feature that makes them sound bad, but they do indeed sound bad, particularly given their high price.

Oh, I've not ever seen their RCA connectors. What I hate is when a perfectly decent, affordable interconnect like Wireworld Atlantis 2 only comes with a brass RCA connector. I'd like to change these to a copper connector, but Wirewirld's copper RCA's are like $50 a pair. Have you ever heard the Clearaudio RCA connectors (Discovery cable uses them)? They're supposed to be better sounding than the best WBT, or so I gather.

No Carl, that brand has not got to the Antipodes. Much as I like the Wireworld products for their neutrality, I agree you get little for the price you pay. WBT's sound good, but I dislike the fitting arrangements on some of them. I have a liking for the Cardas plugs at the price.