has anyone compared Nordost Frey ICs vs Valkyrja

In many cases I have found that using Valhalla gives better results than the others.
HOWEVER, the ONLY way you'll really know is if
a) someone has tried with electrically identical machines to yours
b) you try yourself.

The rest is pure speculation. Regards

Arned:

I have three sets of ICs that I'm playing around with, all XLR: Purist Audio Design Aqueous Anniversary, Nordost Valkyrja, and Nordost Baldur. I find the Purist's are a little darker than either Nordost, with vocals not being quite as big, but instrumentation being somewhat fuller. The Baldur's are a little warmer than the PADs, and are closer to the Valkyrja's in mid and treble, but aren't as gripping or full on bass as the other cables. The Valkyrja's are a more forward cable than the the PADs, but still have excellent bass. I do notice a touch more sibilance on vocals and horns than with PADs, but that I don't think that is the fault of the Valkyrja's, but rather, because I took everything out of my rack and moved it around and reinstalled, so things either need to settle down (the DAC is known to take at least a day to settle back down if powered off) or the new cable arrangement is causing some microphonics, which I'm going to address this weekend. In my experience the higher end Nordost are very neutral so what I'm hearing could also just be new details of recordings that were obscured before, but I doubt it.

You may find that you don't need to go all the way to Valhalla to find what you're looking for. I'd start with the Baldur, maybe, since it's a steal used and easy to resell. If you're still not happy then try the Tyr or Valkyrja. My dad has Valhalla and in his system they are amazing, but I can't quite make the leap. If you can give an idea of what qualities you're looking to improve, then you will probably find that you'll get a ton of different recommendations. The only way to get a real sense of change is bite the bullet, buy a pair of cables, and then sell them if you don't like them.

Thanks fo the advise. The AQ Jaguars in my system sound too analytical and cold, which made me believe that something was wrong with my esotar tweeters. Violins for example are reproduced without any silkyness at all, which to my ear sounds unnatural.After connecting an old pair of Wireworld Silver Eclipse ICs all I was missing with the Audioquest was present again, proofing me wrong on the assumption that my C5s were broken. So, I am hoping to achieve an absolute natural balanced sound while at the same time reveiling all information captured in the recording. I love the sound of my SPM Reference speaker cables and want an Interconnect that makes use of the full potential the SPMs are able to reveil. I read about the Freys needing an extremely long burn in time unless treated with the Vidar system. Nobody ever mentions whether the Valkyrja sound better or inferior to a burned in Frey IC. How about Valkyrja anyway? Described as being the predessor to TYR? Is TYR better? How about burned in Vakyrja vs the burned in Freys? Will Frey sound too bright?
Maybe I will just buy the Valkyrja anyway.

I recently upgraded to Tyr speaker cables and am still using Cardas Golden Ref IC's. The Tyr's were spectacular in my system. I pondered the question between Tyr, Valkyrja and Frey. What the Nordost rep told me was that the Valkyrja was very similar to the current Heimdall. From my experience, the Tyr's are the closest thing to Valhalla, the difference being that the Valhalla has marginally better bass detail. The rest of the characteristics are very similar to Valhalla (Eli Manning vs. Payton Manning). I have tubes and installing these cables really showed what my system was capable of. The speakers disappeared completely. Vocals, acoustic guitars, pianos and violins gave a familiar sound of accuracy. The backgrounds became extremely quiet. Try mixing the Tyr's with the wireworld cables. It may compliment it well. Some think that mixing brands is not the way to go, but I have found that careful auditioning and mixing works. If I were you I would pick the Tyr's over the Valkyrja they're almost the same price.

thank you for your advise Sanji. I will consider the TYRs, have only heard really good things about them, but at an average $1000 used for 1m XLR it is quite the expensive route. Good to hear though that the rep compared Vaklyrja to Heimdall, meaning even the Freys should sonically exceed the Valkyrja ICs.
Thanks