Mike, I concur with your experiences with Nordost, having owned the Valhalla and Heimdall cables and Valhalla and Brahma cords. They are definitely not neutral, though folks who do not know the true meaning of the word neutral insist that they are. To me, neutral means natural sounding, with the tone neither being rolled off, warm and fuzzy, nor artificially highlighting the upper frequencies to try to spotlight more detail, as the Nordost cables do. I have heard Nordost cables work well with some darker sounding gear/rooms, just as I have heard Kubala Sosna and Cardas cables work well with some brighter sounding gear/rooms.
All cables sound like something, unless they are not plugged in. Now folks with a darker system/room may think that brighter cables sound like nothing, just as folks with a brighter system/room may feel that darker cables sound like nothing. The key is simply to balance the music in the room to your taste, regardless of how this is accomplished. Some may prefer to spend their money on the room itself, others the speakers or gear, and others yet will spend it on cables and cords. Whatever the path, the ultimate goal is the same for all of us, to balance the sound of our system to fit our own personal musical tastes.
All cables sound like something, unless they are not plugged in. Now folks with a darker system/room may think that brighter cables sound like nothing, just as folks with a brighter system/room may feel that darker cables sound like nothing. The key is simply to balance the music in the room to your taste, regardless of how this is accomplished. Some may prefer to spend their money on the room itself, others the speakers or gear, and others yet will spend it on cables and cords. Whatever the path, the ultimate goal is the same for all of us, to balance the sound of our system to fit our own personal musical tastes.