Nordost Valhalla Power Cords

It sounds like your experiences are similar to mine Gary, except that I've had the same problems when going all Purist too. That too much of a good thing is not good. At this point, I have a mix of Nordost and Purist in my system. Whenever I've tried to go fully in one direction or the other I have found that the further I go down one road with a single manufacturer, the more their flaws become apparent.

I haven't lived happily (at least two years) with one manufacturer's cables since my days with the Tara Labs Decade in the early-mid 90's. I've tried many times without success. Jade Aduio and Stealth Audio came the closest to fulfilling that goal, but even then I discovered that my system sounded better when I mixed Jade with Stealth.

It is very easy to explain. When you use more different brands you can add more different properties. I want everything in my set. For example; people who only use MIT ( I owend it and sold it) you alwats will miss individuel focus. Instruments ans voices are very direct and small in dimension. People have to learn how instruments and voices sound in real. MIT makes voices often too big. All the shows I have been I encounterd the same problem. For me this is as simple as 1 and 1 is 2. Like Nordost is not good at individual focus, not enough depth en lack of emotion in the mid's. This you find in most brands. I tested cables for hundreds of hours.

Bo I agree Nordost cables are very un-musical and cold. Some will say very neutral however I disagree and have bought and sold lots of it over the years. No music just noise.

Wenn you use Nordost for a part like only the loudspeakercable or one powercable for source or preamp Nordost can give you extra speed and air. Then it can work very effective. But wenn you use it too much, you will always loose some important parts in your system. For me it is this clear. Another example Transparent cabels. It does not do anything wrong. But what I heard sometimes you miss some definition compared to Nordost. But at the end sound is more important then the best resolution. First you have to tearn about the properties of your amp and speakers. Only then you know what kind of cable you should use.

Personally, I'm getting more and more convinced that there are drawbacks of mixing and matching cable technologies to much within the same system. All you do is compensating for weaknesses and flaws ending up with a big compromise.

A trusted local supplier explained the theory behind the cause of timing issues as well recently when combining different cable technologies, which all made sense to me. Timing issues causes a lot of problems, among them cognitive strain and in the end - listening fatigue.

That said, I'm there myself right now combining Nordost Valhalla power cords (throughout) with Kubala Sosna Elation interconnects & speaker cable. I will try Valhalla all through soon. Then we'll see who's "right" :)