Nordost Valhalla 2 announced

Who compared the old Valhalla with the new one?

Bo said : Siltech is a different story. I like there digital cables. But I did test and compare many of there cables. At the time the Valhalla powercable came out I battled often to companies with Siltech Emperor powercables. I never lost once. All the time I was the one who got the deal.

<< Siltech Emperor powercables? Never heard of.

Bo said : One important thing to notice why I got irritated by the Siltech company. I know from the shops who sell it that they raised there prices and the % for shops became higher. So they could give there clients some discount. This is not an honnest way of selling cables.

<< Mark-up and healthy discounts are common and no secret. If you are not getting decent cut buying cable means shop/seller is keeping them as profit. It is as it is.

Interconnects and loudspeakercables were Emperor and the Powercable were Siltech Ruby Moutain Hill. Valhalla was better in timing and speed compared to the best Siltech had at that time. Instruments were also better focussed.

With krell Valhalla was not a good combination. I understood why Transparent worls better In 2004 when it came out it was the powercable which could change the overwhole sound the most. In 2004, 2005 and 2006 I sold many many Valhalla powercables.

With poweramps it was not the best powercable. Audiogon people gave me Purist Audio as a good cable for poweramps. It worked a lot better than Valhalla did. More drive, more depth and a more open and musical mid freq.

Siltech lost a big part of the market in the Netherlands cause of the higher prices. And also because other brands made better cables. The distributor of Siltech in the Neterlands stopped because they were not satisfied about the quality and price.

I've been playing with cables, following each marked incarnation with great interest eversince early 80's. Cardas, MIT, TaraLabs, Siltech amongst others were literally just born then. Hundreds if not more varieties have come visit or stayed in my system at one time or another so am quite familiar with characteristics of each and just found some of your descriptives of them contradicting.. >>

Bo : Interconnects and loudspeakercables were Emperor and the Powercable were Siltech Ruby Moutain Hill. Valhalla was better in timing and speed compared to the best Siltech had at that time. Instruments were also better focussed.

<< I happen to own/using both brands. Also some Odin PCs hence my curiosity of new Valhalla2, and possibility of Odin2 if on the horizon.

Btw it is Ruby Hill/2, Ruby Mountain/2, or Ruby Double Crown (recent), there's never been AFAIK a Ruby Mountain Hill.

Anyway, please spare this thread and let it get back on track. Speak truth, and not what you are selling.

http://www.stereophile.com/content/nordost-premiers-valhalla-2

Here you can read that the overwhole sound became sweeter. They call it more natural. I remember that when the Valhalla came out they called it the most natural sounding cable. I was one of the first who bought it, but I did not find it very natural. When you played full Valhalla the sound was a bit on the cold/clean side. The stage was ok, but not the widest and deepest. Instruments and voices had a lot of space around them but where not as small and direct as in real. The same you could say about the sound of a violin. In real it still was a lot warmer.

They also talk about that the stage became wider with the Valhalla 2 powercord. I had the same results comparing Valhalla 1 and Purist Audio powercords.

In 2001 the Valhalla loudspeakercable was in timing and in decay the best you can get. I lent the Audioquest Kilimanjaro for 2 months of time. In a direct battle the Valhalla had a better overwhole sound. So I bought the Valhalla in 2001. I had this cable for 12 years of time. That is a very long time.

I compared there interconnects often with others. In 2009 I bought the new Acapella XLR pure silver interconnects. With the Pass Labs XA100.5 and XP20 these were superior compared to the Valhalla xlr with Valhalla loudspeakercable. A bigger and wider stage. Much more weight and different layers to be heard. Also the mid freq were more musical and open. Instruments and voices were so much better focussed compared to the Valhalla xlr.

In the test of stereophile they also noticed a less bigger improvement with the change to the new Valhalla 2 interconnect compared to the new powercable and loudspeakercable. I always said that the loudspeakercable and powercable from Valhalla are of a higher level compared to the Valhalla interconnects.

This year on a show I listend to Nordost Odin loudspeakercable, Valhalla powercables, Odin interconnects with Raidho D-1 speakers and Neodio cd player and amp.
The played my cd; Bruce Springsteen Brothers under the Bridge. Compared to my own set the word endings of Bruce Springsteen his voice are so much better to hear to my set at home. The biggest difference is that Bruce is so much sharper focussed at my set. The difference in black is very big. All the instruments play a lot more loose from eachother and are much easier to follow. That is why I always say that the intimate focus of Nordost is missing when played full Nordost. All the times I demonstrate it people prefered other interconnects over the Nordost interconnects with the Nordost loudspeakercable.