Are Nordost really the Rolls Royce of cables?

No they are not. They are the most over hyped cable in the Business.
The price is directly porportional to all the full page adds they run.
They do a great marketing job. But thats all they do right.
I have compared Audioquest Opal to Quatro Fil and cant fugure out why anyone would buy Quatro Fil.

Acording to many People , who owned Tara labs, Transparent, Mit, Zen, Kimber, and quite of few others, when
they Try Nordost cables, it was like a flick of a switch, there results are amazing, addicting, just plain fabulous!
Unfortantly, Some Audio stores wont carry or offer to sell it to you because most other cable manfactures give the salespersons, Kickbacks, points, or some type of marketing gimmick, to have sales people push their product. It is a shame for sales people and the stores, who do not offer Nordost products, for these reasons. The shame is that you purchase some high end gear, and you dont get the "best cabling" for your system, because of these type of marketing gimmicks, that benefit the stores and sales people,and sacrafices your satisfaction with your gear. I had one Friend ready to sell all of his levinson gear, he thought the levinson gear sounded terible, Then his friend mention the Valhalla line,he demo'd it, and that was it! The best cable he heard, ended up keeping his system! All, this just because the store did not want to sell him Nordost, because they wanted to sell him the cables that benefited the salesmen. And yes this is a true story...

It should be noted that Chichiuno is a Nordost dealer, so he may obviously be biased in favor of the Nordost line. With that being said, I am a big believer in the Nordost line, and I have no financial interest in Nordost whatsoever. I have been using many of their products over the years. I started with Red Dawn interconnect and speaker cables, then a Quattro-fil/SPM set-up. I have finally reached the ultimate with all Valhalla interconnects and speaker cables. Now, there may be better cables such as Purist Dominus, Kharma, or Siltech G-5, but these make Valhalla look rather inexpensive by comparison, and most people will never get to audition these others, let alone be able to afford them. I can truthfully say that the revelation of Valhalla is beyond belief! This can also have a negative effect as well...if there are deficiencies in your system, these will be made painfully evident to you! Have some grit and digital artifacts from your CD player, oh yeah, you'll be aware of it! Grainy and bright Russian tubes, same deal. Sloppy and uncontrolled bass from your low powered SET tube amp...it will be "in your face". I'm sure that these are the cause of the two most common complaints that I've heard about Valhalla; brightness and lack of bass. Sorry folks, if you want (or need) cables that act as equalizers or sound shapers, then Valhallas are NOT for you! If you want incredible micro-dynamics and pinpoint spacial location with an immensely large sound stage, then Valhalla is yout ticket. The Nordost line in general has very quick transience, so if you have a system that is on the bright side, then Nordost may not work well with your set-up. Natalie, are you really serious about calling Nordost cables over-hyped and overpriced when compared to your Audioquest Opal?!! The marketing and markup of Nordost pale in comparison to Audioquest. Audioquest is footballed to so many dealers, mail-order houses, and car stereo installers, that the competition for retail pricing (discounts) is cut throat. Quality items are usually not marketed in such a fashion. Nordost vs Audioquest marketing; it's like comparing Rolex and Seiko watches! And there a dirty little secret that I noticed when A/B'ing Audioquest Diamond X3 against Red Dawn interconnects. At first, the Diamond had more snap than the Red Dawn. I finally realized the reason after much comparison...the Diamonds have a slight presence bump (2-3 kHz region) that the Red Dawn did not have. This is the equivalent to dumping an extra bit of sugar in your food!!! Pleasant, but not natural! Again, it goes back to my equalization sstaement.

Who knows whether they are the rolls royce of cable. I have used many iterations of Nordost and have been pleased with the results. However, the price of the Vahalla and even SPM may be justified in a very limited 2 channel system. I have recently set up an extensive home theater and I couldn't imagine using this cable at this price. My goal was to create a high audio experience as well. The cost with nordost would have been more than almost all my equipment combined. Can anyone realisticly justify that expense. There are many excellent cables that will provide excellent sound even in side by side comparison at far less cost. I ended up with Sonoran plateaus from Star sound tech. at a high but reasonable price and the result was a rich and satisfying experience.