Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo Are You Kidding Me?

I sure look forward to meeting you!

You'll get the first class treatment!!!

So, I swapped in a Parasound JC3 phono stage, a Koetsu black goldline cartridge .. substantial improvement.

My problem is Excel Audio, a wonderful high end audio toy store which opened near me. Mike Rose's listening room is unbelievable. Big Wilson speakers, TAD R1s, Dagostino monoblocks and preamp, big Luxmans, top of the line Clear Audio table with Goldfinger cartridge. Cabling which cost far more than my entire system.

I love the sound of my system, then I go there. Sadness.

So, Mike lent me a pair of Nordost Heimdahl II speaker cables. Darn you Mike Rose! I had $1.00/foot Belden 9497 speaker wire. (Much loved by Japanese audio enthusiasts) The difference in sound quality and price, is VERY substantial!

I invited 2 friends over to check my impressions.

I'm going to buy them. I hate myself already.

How long is the cable to one of your speakers?

4 meter ribbon to the left speaker, right speaker is close by the equipment rack, so I have 4 meters to go about 1.5 meters.

Looks like computer power ribbon. I should get some for a buck a foot and see how it compares.

Phil, the Nordost cables have all kinds of specs like capacitance, inductance and velocity of propagation which frankly don't matter unless you are listening to signals above 100KHz. If you are listening to signals above 100KHz, then you don't need speaker cables or any audio gear but rather a nice, quiet padded cell.

The most important spec is missing from the Nordost site. That spec is DCR or DC resistance. I've taken the liberty of calculating that DC resistance which consists of 18 parallel strands of 22AWG. The DCR of the Nordost cable is one sixth of the 16 gauge cable you are using. That might sound significant but it's really not at your cable length. The difference is less than two tenths of a dB.

Atmospheric effects will make a bigger difference to your sound than that cable. If you are hell-bent on reducing your DC resistance, get some 8 AWG cable. It will have a lower DCR than the Nordost cable for a much lower price.

Hi Mojo

I am sure you are correct. I don't know why the Nordost speaker cable makes a difference in sound quality.

Unfortunately, for me, they sound significantly better than what I was using and have brought my relatively modest system to a tiddly flip closer to the real high end sound I love to listen to but cannot afford.

I believe you are perceiving a difference. Many do. I can't hear a difference between my $200 monster cable (free - thanks to Julian at Visions) and $20 twelve gauge. At least one very competent designer in the audio industry claims anyone can hear differences between any kind of cable in his "lab".

Can you describe the differences you're perceiving?

Sitting here I cannot do justice to the improvements, except to say it sounds better. Cymbals and brush strokes sound more realistic.

Big difference when listening to Best of Chico Hamilton LP. (Great album). More vivid, more realistic, more pleasing. My measuring standard is SPM (smiles per minute.) SPM rate way up.

I also have trouble hearing differences between high end cables. My approach is to use the highest gauge cable - 12 for all my runs. I have had opportunity to listen with and technically test all manner of cables and while technically there can be differences, audibly I could not hear those differences.

Are you using a tube amp?