Interconnects for Nordost Valkyrja speaker cables

I have no agenda with Nordost and agree with Mapleleaf. I find Nordost and Valhalla especially, to be quite grainy. They may sound good in some systems but only due to other flaws therein. The highs are very fatigueing and with any highly resolving speaker virtually unlistenable. IMO there are at least a dozen more natural and musical sounding cables.
As far as their use in the shows, we all know there are many factors involved including dinners, lunches, vacations, freebies, discounts, and reviews. Lots of recording studios use B&W speakers and they are hardly the reference or even close to being one of the best speaker on the market.

Judy426, which came first, the chicken or the egg?! I have heard that the Valhallas are merciless in revealing any flaws within a system. I would think twice about using them with SS gear, or a speaker that is know to have a "hot" top end.

I agree that marketing and promotions can result in product placement, but the degree to which the Valhallas swept the market upon introduction makes me think that they are more than just hype and are certainly not "snake oil". I am quite happy with their performance in my system, but as we both agree, this cable can be very system dependent. But I think that ANY cable can be system dependent, as well!

BTW, which cables have bested the Valhallas, in your system? SS or tube gear? Speakers?

On a pair of Vandersteen 5A and a pair of Atma Sphere MA-1, Stealth Hybrid MLT, Zu Ibis, and Audience Au24 all gave us better tonal balance than the Valhalla. It is an overpriced and overrated cable in both speaker wire and interconnect iterations.

I am not a Nordost fan either and use nothing BUT tube gear. Their cables just do not sound right and in my opinion, lack musicality. I would agree with Judy on this one 100%. Yes, I do own Au24 after trying numerous upon numerous cables.

Chris

If you like how Nordost sound, I would try the Rs audio silver interconnect. Cheap, and fairly good. To my ears, they better the red dawn at a fraction of price.