Quad famously used to advertise their amplifiers as being "a wire with gain". Over the past couple of decades open minded listeners have become increasingly aware that, for whatever reason, the 'sound' made by a wire can have a dramatic effect on the overall system performance.

 

We are not talking about slight colourations or some subtle masking of fine detail either. Fundamentals such as dynamics, musical interplays, the indefinable effervescence that defines great playing. These can be brought out by open and transparent cabling.

 

At Signals, we have long been advocates of Nordost. Indeed when taking on Naim electronics about three years ago, our obsessive use of their cables was one of the first topics of conversation. And yes, Naim are indeed happy for us to use Nordost cables with their equipment.

 

So what do Nordost wires sound like? At their best, and in line with the goals set out above, nothing, or at least very close to nothing at all. They do not aim to conceal but, used together, rather than in a mixed brand context, can offer a remarkable level of insight and transparency without added glare or hardness.

 

Already, I can sense hackles rising around the country from people who have tried a single cable and judged the brand to sound flat, dry and edgy. Sure enough, there can be bad combinations with electronics, but by and large these bad experiences are far more likely to be due to a mismatch with other cables in the system. Maybe even because they used a lead that is too short. Half metre speaker cables genuinely sound awful and 0.6 m interconnects are never as good as they are at 1m.

 

Whilst on this subject, always be wary of any half metre Nordost cable that you may be offered. The shortest interconnect that they make is 0.6m and showing the benefit of a 1m minimum is part of their hi-fi show demonstration programme.

 

Nordost have never been shy about charging premium prices for their products. Again, this can set teeth on edge. In truth, £2200 for an interconnect cable is beyond the pale for most of us. Thankfully, real greatness is available at lower prices too.

 

These are unique products with real science behind them and they are made from some of the highest (arguably the highest) quality materials available anywhere. The level of quality improvement that they can bring to a music or a/v system can be dramatic. The argument over price is best settled by how much a given level of gain would cost by other means such as using a better amplifier, source component, etc. Frequently, no other hardware could give the level of quality brought by the cable.

Despite appearances, none of their cables are pure silver, all use copper (of the highest possible purity) and most have silver extruded over them simply to protect them from the high temperatures involved in manufacture.

 

This autumn has seen the arrival of some new speaker cables and interconnects, all of them using the micro monofilament structure first introduced in Quattro-fil and subsequently to devastating effect in the Valhalla cables. Along with the new products, came an unprecedented price cut in the classic Blue Heaven and Red Dawn interconnects and loudspeaker cables.

The ultra high end Valhalla interconnect gains a further improvement with the new WBT ultra low mass phono plugs. Despite the epic cost of these plugs, the cable price is unchanged. Jeepers Nordost. Feeling all right?

 

OK, so you are open minded and want to give this a go. Where to start?

 

Perhaps surprisingly, at the mains. If you own Naim 5 series components, the £220 Shiva mains cable seems to be optimal. For larger components, £450 Vishnu works better, be it for hi-caps, CDX2 / CDS 3 or power amplifiers. For Naim equipment, £900 Brahma seems to be complete pants (modern technical term), although it does seem to be fine with some other brands, such as Chord Electronics, for example. Finally, Valhalla at £1750 is not only biblically priced but biblically good too. And it does not seem to mind what it is connected to either.

 

Our strategy here for our main Naim based demonstration system is to run Valhalla into our mains block and Vishnus to all subsequent components. The impact that Valhalla has in this context is truly astonishing. Definitely a ‘party piece’ demonstration that no-one fails to be impressed by.

These 'designer' mains leads really do open up aspects of system performance normally considered to be domain of hardware. Resolution, bass extension and control, reduction in glare and hardness, improved timing and dynamics. It is not subtle! Although the system will certainly acquire the means to reveal more subtleties in the recording.

 

As for interconnects, we can wholeheartedly recommend Red Dawn, Heimdall, Tyr and Valhalla. Baldur has yet to impress, in our (Naim system based) judgement, and after many hours of burn, in Frey interconnect remains just plain weird. After an initially impressive start and a very odd sounding mid period during its amazingly extended burn in period, Tyr has emerged as a very convincing proposition. These are subjective judgements on our part and are definitely relative to context, so remember all these cables can be tried in your own system.

 

Finally, speaker cable. Historically, we have got along best with Blue Heaven, Red Dawn and Valhalla. The recent price falls have made the first two more accessible than ever before and the new range of speaker cables, Baldur, Heimdall, Frey and Tyr have mainly yet to come our way. We have a set of Heimdall speaker cables at the moment and the burn-in is proving every bit as convoluted as with the Tyr interconnect.

 

More on this soon.

 

Also see pulsar points See Nordost prices in PDF form: Nordost prices

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