Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo Here We Go - Balanced Interconnects

OK, so I should be asleep, but I can't stop listening to the music. I think my BAT/Wilson system is done. I swapped out the 3.5m Mogami Gold XLR interconnects for a pair of Nordost Heimdahll 2 XLRS. I was nervous, although if I wanted to return them, I could.

My goodness. Right out of the box, they sounded great. I did some listening and noticed a significant improvement. Hard to describe, but, the Nordosts are purer, cleaner, better dynamics, more exciting.

I am using a pair of monoblocks, so I use the XLRs to connect the preamp to the 2 amps. The run is 3.5 meters.

Let the fun begin!

Pretty sure those would be a wasted on a non-believer such as myself .
But I think your gonna get a lot of enjoyment from them …

Hello rrlev

You have a standing invitation to come by and give it a listen.

Might be a more appealing proposition when things get brumous ... I'll throw some steaks on the barbie and spin some vinyl for you. You'll be able to put the matter to the test.

I'll upgrade my interconnects once I have my audio room built since the wires will all be in closer proximity to each other. I don't know if it'll improve sound quality but I want to insure no interference from the massive amounts of wires that have to be run. Probably stick with Mogami or BJC.

Hi Chris

I prefer the Mogami Gold to Monoprice. I have a giant tupperware container full of BJC offerings. They are pretty good. I've also had good luck with Best Cables in the World (Amazon).

BTW your rig is similar to mine - LFR1100As, VP160, 2xEP600s, 6x M2OWs. Sounds pretty good.

Traded in my QS10s for 4-M3 in ceiling speakers so I could finish off Atmos for HT. Room is wired for rear zone speakers so I may end up adding so on walls down the road in the back of the room. Next step is to add another 600 and an ADA1000-8 for the M5OW and the six ceiling speakers.

Here is an interesting example on cables for people to consider:
I have been in the camp of using BJC for a number of years as they build nice quality and built to order.
They use very good quality Belden and Canare wire and I have to say that it works nicely for my system.

I had also been using a BJC Belden SE or maybe it's LE? series HDMI cables for my ARC connection from the Sony Flat TV to the Anthem AVM 60 preamp. I started suddenly to have major handshake issues (I suspect the Sony did some automatic update). No matter what I did with settings, factory default resets, etc, it would not reliably connect between the two units. One day it just completely died, no audio at all between the TV and the sound system, nothing and it would not come back with virtually everything I tried. Since I stream YouTube premium music AAC file service, I lost all of my streaming music!

I was told by a guy at a dealer to try a new HDMI cable. I had some other BJC HDMI's on hand and swapped out cables, still no go. I called BJC to discuss this and I was told this was not a cable issue, the cable will either work or not work, and if they work on other source use, it's not the cables, it's a problem with the AVM60 or the Sony. I was about to go out and pick up a new Sony Oled since I blamed my 5 year old Sony on this problem. But just for the hell of it I decided to try an AudioQuest high end Carbon series 48K HDMI at a cost of $280 for a 5 foot cable, yikes. I swapped it into the system and thinking this was not going to work, but why not try it as I have a 60 day return period..... voila!! It fired right up! And the audio resolution was astounding. I mean the upper end frequencies just opened up. It was so good that I decide to go back and pick up the Vodka series 48K HDMI at a cost of $500 for 5 feet just to hear what that would do and it expanded the upper end even further. SOLD! I returned the Carbon and kept the Vodka.

Not only did things pop sonically but the speed of control and reliability of the connection were spot on. I was amazed at what a cable would do. And trust me, I have not been in the camp of spending a ton of money on high end cables, not ever. I may have to reevaluate my thinking on this.

Hi Slimpikins

I have a big Sony 75 and an OPPO 205. They did not play well together I think I was getting audio drop outs, anyway, Sony was no help but OPPO said Sony had handshake issues because it kept interrogating the OPPO (or something).

Anyway OPPO asked for the 205 back did something and now it and the Sony are best of friends.

Although a believer that cables effect sound quality it is difficult to understand why an undamaged HDMI cable would not work while another would. Now that is magic.

I had to change out my 30’ PJ HDMI run because of the same thing after a couple years of use. Just stopped working and would drop sync and stop. Put an 8K cable in and back no issues.

Trevor, did you mean Blue Jeans cable? Not sure of PJ cables.

2x6spds; I think the issue with the cable working with the HDMI is based on cable speed. It's just like Cat 5, Cat6, Cat7 etc. each series network cable has a limit of throughput of data, hence the newer versions coming out to handle newer devices such as 1 gig routers or 10 gig devices. The older cables like Cat5 cannot handle it or if you go for long runs, they won't work.

I believe that what was going on is the Sony did some update which perhaps allowed for much higher resolution music files or other data and the 4 year old BJC Belden SE series couldn't handle it. And the handshake got screwed up. Going to the higher rated 48K AudioQuest cleared up the issue immediately. Plus the audio resolution improved dramatically