Nordost Red Dawn revII vs SPM

The red dawn is quite excellent, but the SPM is noticeably better in a high resolution system. I noticed an increase in detail almost immediately - and that was just swapping the amp/preamp cable alone. Part of it being worth it or not depends on the low level resolution of your system. For example: if I put the cable into my old denon/spica tc-60 system, I doubt if I could tell the difference. In my pass labs/audio physic virgo system, there was a noticable difference. Red dawn is a great cable by any measure.
Only You can decided:
Are you happier listening to a barely perceptibly increase in smoothness/detail, or watching your money shrivel away in tech stocks?

Believe it our not, as much as Red Dawn improved my Spica TC60/B&K system, the improvement wrought by SPM ICs was not subtle, quite obvious in fact. With the Alon V/Cary/Meitner system it was much more dramatic. Personally, I liked Red Dawn much better than Blue Heaven, both speaker & IC, fuller mids and bass. I think it's a fine cable. However, the SPM was better, and my new Quattro Fil is the best IC I've had in my system by a wide margin.

Rackon, do you find the Quattros emphasise the lower mid-range a bit? I am trying out the Quattros now (SPM ref for speakers) vs Bearlabs and Siltech silvers. Am using full sets from each manufacturer. I find (or am I imagining) that the Siltechs are a tad soft and "kindly euphonic" in the upper register, Bearlabs do not colour the system, and the Qs as above.
I had the same experience as you with Quattro vs SPM vs Red Dawn (never used BHeaven).

I agree that the Red Dawn is more system specific. The Blue Heaven is an excellent all around cable. Does not match the Red Dawn if the RD is in a system it is matched well for. By the way, I no longer have my Red Dawns, I have Siltech.

On the subject of red dawns, does anyone know what Harry Pearson's objection to them was? In his TAS review of the Valhallas, he praised the entire Nordost line "except for the red dawns". I notice lots of Nordost wire for sale-- from blue heaven on up to Quattro Fil, presumably as people are moving up now that the Valhalla is out-- and I was thinking of replacing my Flatline Mk. II speaker wire (Sunfire Cinema Grand voltage outputs to Legacy Focus woofers) with some used Red Dawns as I'm quite happy with the RD interconnects I'm using from my lexicon dc-2 processor to the cinema grand's front channels. I'm looking for tighter bass. Any suggestions would be appreciated since I'm relatively new to this hobby/obsession. (My front ends are a CAL cl-10 changer and a Sony S7700 dvd/cd player). Thanks in advance.