Nordost Power Cables - my latest experience

Agree. I don’t buy into one has to use the same cable manufacturer throughout. Even if every component in your rack is made by the same manufacture it doesn’t make a difference. For one thing, room acoustics will have a play in the sound more than most people realize; some rooms just flat out suck... so we go down the rabbit hole chasing new components without ever addressing the problem that is the room. I know I’ve preached it and I think others have as well that cables are tone controls because most our gear has no means to correct a poor sounding room or the quality of the recording. Cables are tone controls and I don’t care if you have the most expensive wire out there. So I say mix cables as needed just like we mix the manufactures of or equipment. I’ve had great luck mixing WyWires, Kimber, Nordost and Clear Day together. I’ve had great success with each line as a full system and I suppose that’s why I have a mix... actually never had a full Nordost set but I like their cables on my digital gear.

I just added a Bluesound Node II and I’m loving it. I built my own PC and purchased an Ethernet cable and using the DAC in my CD player and it sounds great. Last night I felt as things are settling in the presentation was a little too crisp but not bright or fatiguing but just not right. I know my cables very well so I switched my Clear Day balance cable between my DAC and preamp with the balanced WyWires between preamp and amp and that did it... sounds wonderful. It was a subtle change but it was needed and I wasn’t surprised by the results. 

My point is (again) cables are tone controls and just like equipment manufactures, cable manufactures have a house sound so it doesn’t mean one cable company fits all. If one buys into you have to stick with one cable manufacture then I would think one would stick with one equipment manufacture as well which I bet most of us don’t follow. Cables are tone controls; no cable is perfect and the best of cables do one thing better than so so cables and that is get out of the way and let the gear do its job. If ones gear sounds like you know what, a great cable is going to sound like you know what?

Totally agree with Elizabeth. Mix a way.

Hi agisthos, it seems like you have plenty of experience with high fidelity and nordost, could you mind sharing your thoughts their differences? And at the end which ones are you using more ?
Thanks

Hi alfau7

High Fidelity Cables will beat any Nordost cable, especially on interconnects and digital cables, which is what I use them for.

I am on record saying be wary of HFC for speaker cables due to potential mismatch issues. But when they work - they are spectacular.

But I have not heard any of the new HFC Reveal line, which I think is built to a lower price point.

The High Fidelity CT-1 Ultimate power cable was also the best power cable I have ever had in my system. But it cost 15k, is now NLA, and I was never able to own it, only borrow it.

But but but.... I need to talk about the real world, and what I can afford. I like the Nordost Heimdall 2 for power cables, in the low end (if you can call $800 USD cables that) price range.

I also now have the QB8. This is a must have upgrade, and seems to have full synergy with Nordosts own power cables. I have now dumped all my power conditioners, parallel power filtering devices, e.t.c to go to the QB8 - its just better.

The QB8 looks like an empty box with a circuit board in it (the sockets are not even point to point wired, they are soldered to a PCB). I am not sure what magic Nordost is doing but its better than all other power strips or filters.

And now onto the Nordost QKore grounding unit. Revelatory drop in background noise. Nothing harmonically changes, just everything becomes more real and palpable.

I will go on record here to say the foundation of your system should be a Nordost QB4/8 as the power distributor, with its ground post connected to the QKore 1. And put both these boxes on decent footers.

This should be a priority purchase before any other cabling. Without this you cannot really hear what your system is doing or what its capable of. With this setup as the foundation, all upstream components and cables start to become easy to hear what they are doing and how they are voiced. But at the same time digital fatigue and harshness is reduced, especially with the QKore connected.

@agisthos

“ High Fidelity Cables will beat any Nordost cable, especially on interconnects and digital cables, which is what I use them for.

I am on record saying be wary of HFC for speaker cables due to potential mismatch issues. But when they work - they are spectacular.”

I would concur with much of this comment, I found the HFC Ultimate interconnects and digital exceptionally good ( I still use an pair of IC’s CDP to Pre ) however I just couldn’t get along with the associated speaker cables... like attempting to force the signal through a strangulated lead pipe !