Acoustic Zen vs. Nordost

Fatparrot, the reason I used the term "in your face", is twofold: 1) The soundstage in my system moved forward and lost depth at the same time. 2) I found the Valhallas to be very detailed but lacked natural sounding timbres and were somewhat bright in my system. That's one of the main reasons that individuals with somewhat layed back tubey sounding systems found them so appealing in my opinion. I recently upgraded from AZ Silver reference II/ Matrix referenceII and Satori speaker wire to Mr. Lee's new reference called the Absolute and have nothing but sonic pleasure from having them in my system. I posted a review here on the GON if you your interested in more details. Thanks for the fun and friendly discourse on this topic.

Jec...I have compared the Hologram II with the Satori (mono), and in my setup, I find the Hologram II to be more open, offering greater depth in the soundstage, and just sounding a little more engaging. I have not tried comparing the shotgun bi-wire versions.

Note: I am an AZ dealer

Call the folks at www.fatwyre.com and get yourself introduced to the Cable Lending Library.

I've compared Valkyrja, Valhalla, AZ Absolute, and Stealth Indra in a system I'm very familiar with (not my own, but I've spent many, many hours listening to it) and 2 other systems I've listened to quite a bit. From what I've heard, the AZ Absolute is roughly equal in quality to the Nordost Valkyrja, though depending on the system, either could be a better match. Looking at Teajay's system, I'd guess the AZ would be the better match, based on what I've heard. However, I preferred the Nordost to the Acoustic Zen in all 3 systems. I've only heard the Indra in one system, but in this case it was an order of magnitude better than any other cable I've experienced.

The Acoustic Zen Absolute did some things very well... it's more dynamic than the Valhalla, though I'm not sure I felt the added dynamics sounded entirely natural to my ear. They do some instruments very well, especially acoustic guitar. However, they added an annoying edge to vocals that I didnt like. That edge on the vocals alone would be enough for me personally to rule them out, but I felt the Valhallas were better in almost every other category.

When it comes to cables, I don't think there's ever going to be an absolute best. System synergy and listener taste are far more important than anything else. Even in a hypothetical system with no weaknesses, some listeners are going to prefer colorations of the sound, and some no coloration at all. My preference is Stealth Indra, followed by Nordost Valhalla. I feel these cables let the music through with no detremintal effects (Indra) or very few (Valhalla). I am not aware of anything I can recommend more highly, but if your tastes differ from mine it's entirely possible that you may hate both.

SteveOls4, thanks for sharing your opinion regarding your experiences with the Nordost, AZ, and Stealth cables. Just three questions and a statement concerning your post:1) What gear composed the system that you listened/compared the three wires on? 2) What is in my system gear wise that made you believe that the AZ would be a better match than the other wires? 3) You are the first person that I know who has ever stated that AZ sounds "rough" on vocals, which happens to be one of the cables great strenghs, so what music/vocals did you listen to when audtioning the different wires? 4) The statement. Do you realize that the Nordost/Stealth cables cost around 4 to 6 thousand dollars more than the top of the line AZ Absolute cables! They better sound better for the price difference, but this would go back to my postion regarding that Nordost is a seriously over priced regarding cost/performance ratio and the Stealth cables make the Nordost almost seem like a $ bargain. So, besides the always present factors of personnal taste/system synergy I would still suggest that Nordost is very overpriced when compared to performance vs. cost ratio when compared to other great sounding wires. Hope to hear from you regarding my questions, I will thank you in advance and wait for your response.