Youngatheart - Yes the series2 is warmer sounding. To my ears when you have more bass and a more liquid sound I consider that warmer. As far as the originals to me they do have more 'air' between the instruments and vocals with a little more detail. Now to me I call that less liquid sounding. Both are great cables but they very different sounding. More different than going from RD to Heimdall.
Daveyf
Could it be that they were spending more labor on creating the bi-wire end and were not getting compensated for it. As I recall, the cost of the shotgun (single wire...they shouldn't get away with calling it shotgun as it isn't) was the same as the bi-wire ends. Does my theory make sense to everyone?
The cost difference is ONE pair of connectors at one end of the cable and the labor to put them on.
I do agree Nordost calls their bi-wire and shotgun incorrectly. A true bi-wire is 2 separate runs of cables. Many cable companies also refer to that as shotgun. Now if you look at the construction of the original Heimdalls there is 4 groups of conductors. The series2 have 2 groups of conductors. There are less conductors in the series2 but they are a larger awg wires. Heimdall originals have twenty four 24awg wires where the series2 have eighteen 22awg wires. The overall effective gauge stays the same. The Frey2 OTOH has twenty two 22awg wires where the originals have twenty four 24awg wires so the overall effective goes up by 1 with the series2.
http://home.hiwaay.net/~rgs/awgcalculator.html
Is there marketing hype? I'm sure there is in a lot of cases but you really have to compare the originals to the series2 side by side.
As far as Nordost not making 'bi-wire' cables I'm sure it will cost them some business and I can not believe a company would do that without good cause. IMO it can't be to force you into buying 2 sets of cables because of the double cost to the consumer. As far as I can tell they still offer bi-wire in the Vahalla and Odin BUT not in the Leif or Norse2 series.
