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Nordost Baldur vs Red Dawn

I purchased a pair of 6 meter Nordost Baldur XLR's to replace a pair of Nordost Blue Heaven XLR's to go between my Pass Labs X1 preamp and my Pass Labs X250.5 amp. There seems to be a huge amount of extra bass with the Baldur but I'm loosing some transparency that the Blue Heavens had. The Blue Heavens where 2 meters long and the Baldurs are 6 meters long. This extra length enables me to place my amp between my speakers and other gear along the side wall.
I'm wondering if the smaller amount of transparency in the Baldur is a characteristic of the cable or perhaps because of the extra length compared to the shorter Blue Heavens?
I'm courious how a Red Dawn interconnect would compare to the Baldur.
By the way I'm using a Blue Heaven IC between my Cd player and preamp

Thanks,

Bob
bob_alders
xti16
1,525 posts
 
Well since no one has answered I take a stab at it. Not sure what you mean by transparency though. A couple of years ago I had a Nordost demo case that had everything from the Blue Haven through the Frey. My impressions were as follows. Both the BH and RD were decent but bright. The Baldur had more bass for sure but lacked the highs the BH and RD's had. Mids were a little toned down too. The Heimdall and Frey were what I preferred. Better tonal balance from top to bottom.
bob_alders OP
7 posts
 
Actually instead of saying transparency perhaps I should have put it the way you did. I'm not finding the Baldur to be bright in my system but as far as the highs and the mids go I agree with you ,they seem toned down compared to the Blue Heavens. I have no experiance with other Nordost offerings however I am wondering what the Red Dawns would do, there's a pair up for sale that I'm thinking about in this longer length that I need, perhaps they would bring back the highs and mids that the Blue Heavens had.
You may have answered my question already, sounds like my experiance may be the charicteristic of the Baldur cable and not so much that it was 3 times longer than the Blue Heavens.
Thanks for your reply.
chayro
2,985 posts
 
The best I can figure out, cables don't have "highs and lows". They have different electrical characteristics that interface with your amplifier and speaker and alter the frequency response accordingly. If you have a boomy system or room, you may well prefer a cable that, combined with the rest of your system, tilted the frequency response away from the bass region. That's why I don't think anyone can judge cables in a vacuum - In a bass-shy system, the Baldur may work wonders, but they just don't click with yours. That's why a demo in your system is the only way to know whether the cable will work for you.
xti16
1,525 posts
 
Chayro I agree with you. But it is the cables electrical characteristic that can make a cable sound lean bright or boomy. A Nordost example would be to compare a Blue Haven or Red Dawn to the new Frey2 or Tyr2. And yes it depends on the system it is in too. Personally I have found that a mega buck cable in a mini buck system will not do as much as if they were in a mega buck system. In fact the mega buck cable may bring out all the flaws in a mini buck system making them seem to be a bad fit. So I think we are saying the same thing just in a different way ;)
bob_alders OP
7 posts
 
Being a newcomer to Nordost it was a surprise to find a cable that was so capible in the low end. Most of my past systems would have really benefitted with this cable. My Martin Logan Prodigys may not require the extra low end capibility of the Baldur . It's a very nice cable though and would do wonders in many systems.
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