Is the SPM/Quatro fil still a good choice

Thorty40,

I'm primarily interested in IC's rather than speaker cables at this time. I've got an Electrocompaniet EMC-1 cdp, Berning ZH-270 amp driving Aerial speakers. Would you consider this combo to be of high enough quality where the SPM's would work? I've been told that the Jena Labs Symphony cables are also extremely good.

Thanks,

Ken

Although people will recognize my moniker as being the official dealer for HMS cables, I will take the liberty to strictly speak about the two Nordost cables mentioned, since this was the exact same combo I had in my system, when I started out on my cable quest.
In my humble opinion, the Quatro Fils and the SPMs do not go together very well. The Quatro Fils are a far better cable than the SPM and Nordost made huge mistake, never to develop a Quatro Fil line of speaker cables. The SPM is at least one steo down from the Quatro Fil performance.
I really could not stand to listen to the SPM cables for a very long time and that caused me to get a cable loan of the Valhalla cables. I needed to know how much better the Valhalla really were,since I also was quite a doubter that cables can make such a difference in a system.
The gap between the Quattro Fil interconnects and the Valhalla ICs was there of course, but in my system the gap between the Valhalla speaker cables and the SPM was gigantic.
Now I knew that the SPM was a rather poor performer, but I bought this knowledge for big price: After I had auditioned the Valhalla, I knew now how much difference a cable can make and was instantly hooked to the Valhalla performance and sound.
But what kept me from immediately buying a full Valhalla system was the price, gigantic performance for a gigantic price.
This caused me to venture out on my cable quest and to audition almost 45 brands of cables and led me finally to become the importer of HMS cables.
I am my best witness, since had I thought the Quattro Fil and SPM combo to be satisfying, (I had it in my system!!!) there would have been no further search for a much better price-performance cable and my cable quest would never have started.
I can imagine that people think that the SPM-Quattro Fil combo are a decent peformer, as long as they never heard better cables. Only in auditioning you learn about sonic qualities and better has always been the enemy of good.

I have used the SPM/Quattro Fil combo for about 6 months. I have switched to Acoustic Zen Silver Ref interconnect and Hologram speaker cable. In my opinion they both better the Nordost cables and do it for a lot less money. To my ear Quattro Fil/SPM = sterile sound. I have not heard Valhalla.

I agree with not using SPM and Quattro together. Use all of either one, preferably the Quattro. If you did not guess from my earlier post, I think the Quattro are worth the extra cash over the SPM.

I recently have developed a liking for the Blue Circle BC95 which lists for only $250 for a meter pair. The BC95 is not the best at anything, but accross the entire frequency spectrum it simply "sounds right" to me.

The internal wiring of the Nordost El Dorado power cord uses the same kind and amount of wires as do the Quattro-fil interconnects. If handy w/ your hands I have heard of people buying the used El Dorado PC for a couple hundred bucks and making both the Quattro-fil IC as well as a KILLER set of "quattro-fil" speakers cables, which even Nordost never did! Someone I know overseas has several sets that he has compared to his friend's SPM ICs and they reportedly beat the SPM all around! Thinking of getting a used El Dorado and some Nordost Moonglo RCAs and sending them over.