Prior to my Valhalla 2 cables, it’s taken me 27 years of searching to arrive at a fairly simple system where finally I don’t hear a blaring brightness, edginess, or sluggish warm tone. I’ve tested so many speakers, power amps, pre-amps, including home demos, including some respected and some less respected amps, including from McIntosh, Moon, Bryston, Arcam, Musical Fidelity, Rotel, and many others. I almost gave up on my lifelong quest to to find a hi-fi system I liked, thinking that I couldn’t find a system that didn’t absolutely ruin a good portion of my favourite tunes such that it became un-listenable.
Then I came across the Gryphon Diablo300 integrated, with the internal DAC module. It really was the holy grail for me after searching for so long, and it makes all material I like sound awesome. I know you can do better with more cash, but with the gear available from dealers near or semi-near me, there was nothing even at double the price of the Diablo 300 that to my ears was even acceptable to me, regardless of the cost.
I am the opposite of the type of audiophile who says "above a certain price almost everything sounds amazing". I find 99.9% to sound good but have some flaw to my ears that ruins absolutely everything.
It’s been a very, very long road to getting to a happy place with hifi for me. Prior to the point where I got my Diablo 300 in 2019, my journey was filled with a lot of disappointment and compromise. There were many times where I felt, screw this I’ll just stick to my $500 headphones which sound great.
All that to say, once I found that the Diablo 300 could finally tame my relatively modest B&W 803 D2 speakers (I’ve tried many other speakers at that level through the decades too), I felt I could finally focus on cables without feeling the need to compensate for something I didn’t like about my system, and the Valhalla 2’s did the trick! Nothing thin at all about them. BUT - I DID find the Valhalla 2 power cord to be "thin", if by thin we mean lacking in low-frequency (bass) energy. It’s very possible it simply isn’t compatible with my Gryphon, especially considering that my Nordost dealer actually admitted that another Gryphon owner told him precisely the same thing about the Valhalla 2 power cord. He said he even reported it to Nordost since two Gryphon owners had the same experience.
Currently I’m testing a demo Audioquest Dragon High-Current power cord, and also a Shunyata Omega QR-BB cord. Currently the Shunyata is kicking Audioquest’s ass (but the Dragon is nevertheless great), however, I just received the Dragon and it is not broken in, and as such it’s not fair to compare just yet. Also, concerning, the Shunyata seems to form a loose connection with my amp, even when you use the included plastic shim to help with this. The slightest wiggle can lose a connection. Might be a showstopper for me, despite how stunning the sound is.