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Curious How These Nordost Speaker Cables Do What They Do

For a day and a half I’ve been listening to Nordost Red Dawn Rev.II cables in my system(Quad VA-One and Dynaudio Excite X14),courtesy of a friend who is in turn demo’ing some ungodly expensive upgrade...My reference are the Acoustic Zen Epoch..What these cables have brought to my system are:
The first thing I noticed is the music seems to come easier,ie:a touch louder than normal at low levels and it’s so clean I find I’m listening louder..
wider,deeper,and sharper defined imaging and staging...deeper,better defined and tonally richer bass...increased low level detail retrieval...a treble that is not as easy on the ears but seems better defined,almost sharp and I can see where some systems could move way to far into bright with these cables...
So I attribute the cleaner/sharper tone to the addition of high purity silver to the cable but I wonder what it is about the materials and construction that allow the bass,imaging and staging changes and especially the ease which music seems to come now?Any comments(from those who have found cables do matter)and NOT from those who believe they are snake oil PLEASE!!!
freediver
uberwaltz's avatar
uberwaltz
13,381 posts
 
@cheapbob.

Can I be friends with your friend too please! Nice to know there are some people who just happen to have Valhalla cables "lying" around gathering dust!
Yikes!
drastic's avatar
drastic
18 posts
 
You ask an excellent question, freediver.  A few who have posted here touched on the technical reasons, but no one has given a clear and complete explanation.  I can't either.  But, there's no doubt that complex things are happening in cables that affect what we hear in a big way.  My own system has 3 brands of high-end cable that work well for me, but there's no point in naming them because what works for you could be different.  Here are the things to remember:
  1. Speaker cable interacts strongly with both speaker and amp.  Get to know a dealer who sells both, because he will have experimented with lots of cables, and he'll know what works well.  In my case, since both the speakers and monoblocs are by MBL, my dealer has lots of experience with what goes on both ends of the cable.
  2. Quality doesn't necessarily always increase with price.
  3. There is at least one prominent company out there (I won't say) that sells overpriced snake oil.  You'll be able to figure out who it is if you pay close attention to their ads in TAS and Stereophile, as they use lots of pseudo-scientific words designed to make you think they have discovered magic.
  4. Interconnect is important also, but in my experience what's good with one brand of source / pre / amp is good with others.  Once you choose a speaker cable, maybe a good experiment is to try the same manufacturer's interconnect.
  5. Trust your ears.
  6. A cable company that has a lending library can be your friend in this.
  7. After you've chosen speaker and interconnect cables, listen to power cords.  I thought that was lunacy at first, but it's not, and now I have all that plus a power conditioner.
George
dave_b's avatar
dave_b
3,159 posts
 
I hate to sound so definitive about anything, but for me and a lot of music lovers, Transparent is uniquely guided by, and committed to allowing your audio system to recreate music with such an utterly natural and noiseless environment that it becomes completely immersive!  
fleschler
2,021 posts
 
The two major brand cables with the worst sounding audio shows are the Transparent and High Fidelity cables.  The best I've heard at half a dozen shows has been the Mastersound cables.  Grover Huffman cables would be next.  Triode Labs wires in shows always sounds good.  Why is it that the most expensive cables from Transparent and High Fidelity ruin fine equipment at shows?  I have also auditioned High Fidelity cables in an $800,000 home system (AvantGarde Trios, 3X Basshorns, Caliburn/Cobra analog, etc).  and replacing the bright, forward and boomy sounding High Fidelity cables (2 ICs and 2 A/Cs) costing $40,000+ with Grover Huffman (elaborate design) for $2,200 brought the system into balance.  I bet even similarly low cost Triode Wires or more expensive Kubala wiring would have sounded great but the bright/boomy wires of several high end brands are terrible sounding in every system I;ve heard them in. 
ieales's avatar
ieales
1,201 posts
 
Some might find this Cable Snake Oil Antidote interesting with respect to LRC, the signal and the system.

Cables affect the sound and the effect is system dependent.

Another's opinion on a cable in a vastly different system may not be valid.
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