2. cables
  3. 177669-125055

Nordost Valhalla 2 - Susceptible to Noise?

I was over the moon with the improvements my Valhalla 2 speaker wire brought to my system, until the next day things didn’t sound so great.  I thought maybe my first impressions were overblown, until I tried again after midnight and that glorious holographic soundstage re-emerged.

It seems that the Nordost cables are so resolving that I blatantly hear differences in power quality, and I’ve since gone down the path of investigating power conditioners.

But that’s another story.  What I’m wondering is whether the Valhalla 2 cables themselves could be more susceptible to RF/EMF noise, given their unique ribbon design?  And, if so, is their any way to deal with this issue?

I’ve seen some folks using Alan Maher’s Circuit Breaker Filters which you can simply tie to pretty much anything, but they don’t seem to be on his site anymore.

nyev
tunefuldude's avatar
tunefuldude
197 posts
 

Forgot to add that one of the things I like about my Nordost speaker cables is how sexy they look. Ha ha ha ha I’m kind of into design, as a matter of fact that’s one of the reasons I bought my ML Summits, because I think they’re beautiful to look at and I consider that an added feature of the cables, that they pair well visually. I guess sometimes you just gotta bite the bullet

I think the ribbon design looks so cool mostly because it has such a unique shape and it’s so pliable. From a design standpoint, it pairs real well not only w/ my speakers but with the decor of my whole place.

wsrrsw's avatar
Ag insider logo xs@2x
wsrrsw
970 posts
 

Another vote for Power conditioning....audiophile wall plus too. 

nyev OP
1,031 posts
 

@tunefuldude , I do note the great reviews of the PS-Audio regenerators, but I’m actually more excited to try the Niagara 5000 and Torus RM20 for two reasons:

The Niagara and Torus get just as good reviews at way less cost. Plus, one pro review which is easy to find pretty much rated the Niagara 5000 and P15 evenly with a slight preference for the Niagara which he found more energetic. Finally, there is an Audiosciencereview video where Amir “proves” that the PS-Audio P12 actually degrades the sound. That said, he also “proved” the Niagara 1200 does nothing, so who knows!

I’ve yet to see direct comparisons that put the higher cost regenerators ahead of the lower cost conditioners.

curiousjim's avatar
curiousjim
4,528 posts
 

Two houses ago I had intermittent noise so I bought an Audience AR-6 and it helped a lot. Then we moved to a new subdivision that was a cow pasture just a few years before. Everything electrical was new and buried and I had absolutely no power problems. About 3 years ago we moved back to the big city. The dwellings are not as close to each other, but now I’m getting the intermittent line noises again.  I'm using the AR-6 again and all is quiet again.

All the best.

JD

dancarlson10
33 posts
 

I use a Nordost qb8 power supply for all my power cables from wall. Of course a great V2 or Odin2 should come from wall into that. I also as a Concert violin performer always notice night is deafeningly quiet compared to day. Even during day time vs. night time rehearsals, not just performances.  I have Odin 2 speaker cable and V2 and Tyre 2 power cables (depending where in the system).  When I added a dedicated 20 amp line to my place noise became much less apparent. Just my experience.

More to discover