That was true with both of the Nordost Micro Mono-Filament cable lines-well beyond everything else I have in-house.īut of all the areas in which the performance of the long Heimdall interconnects matched that of the long Valhallas, perhaps the most pleasing was the fact that, with these budget cables in place, my system's sense of presence wasn't diminished one whit. After weeks of switching back and forth between the 6m Valhalla interconnect and the 6m Heimdall, I'm still not sure I can reliably hear more than the most ephemeral difference, if any, between them.Īn example: On a brilliant new Cisco Music LP of the Heifetz-Piatigorsky recording of the Brahms Double Concerto, Op.102 (LDS-2513, footnote 3), Piatigorsky's "Batta" Stradivari cello was right there in virtually every sense of realism: spatial, timbral, and textural, as well as sheer size and scale. The Heimdall system was natural, easy, and wide open.Īs to individual cable applications, my experience told me that the Heimdall interconnect, in generous lengths and used between preamp and power amps, is the family's biggest bargain. With the Heimdalls, my music system breathed naturally: There were no constrictions, no sense of the music being squeezed out, strained out, or shot out at me. The Heimdalls were as uncolored, as tonally neutral, as any other wires I've heard, and did nothing to detract from the qualities I prize in the components I've bought over the years. To begin with the latter, the Heimdall cable system was beautifully listenable, and very much in keeping with the qualities that the Nordost Valhallas have led me to expect. Over the past several weeks I've listened to the new Nordost products in various combinations: sometimes just the speaker cables, with all my usual interconnects in place sometimes just one interconnect pair at a time, in combination with all the other usual cables and sometimes-in fact, most of the time-the whole Heimdall pantheon, all at once. The speaker cables reviewed were 2m Heimdalls, with spades on the source end to suit my Lamm monoblocks, and the excellent Nordost Z-Plugs (a number of which I bought years ago for installing on my other cables) at the loudspeaker end. I used 1m and 1.5m samples of the Heimdall interconnect for my source components. Thus, substituting an identical length of the Heimdall interconnect seemed a pretty fair review comparison, the only other difference being the upgrade to those fancy WBT phono plugs. What an amazing couple of hours.Also during those three years, my main interconnect has been a borrowed 6m pair of Nordost Valhallas: the best-sounding long interconnect I've used. And never did it sounded weak, collapsed or distorted. I could feel it and I felt it to the bones! The thundering drums shook me and energy across the room blasted the horns up to realistic scale. That was exactly what I experience with this album. It was very easy to see and feel the musicians in the orchestra, talk about being in a bubble with music. Musicians were almost in color, in front of me and way back in the soundstage. Mahler’s Symphony No.5 is not an easy task for any system, but the Audio Note system was breathing to its fullest and it really did portrait the Symphony with a realism I have rarely encountered. Again the Audio Note system present what I noticed with other music genres it doesn’t care what genre you play, it will bring the music to your listening room with life and beauty, it will engulf you and let you see right into the music and the quality to the performance. The music was at some points scary and sometimes sad. Powerful and full of glory, silence and extended dynamic range were the keywords for what the Audio Note system was presenting me with. Not a smart move by me as I woke up the wife and kid. Leonard Bernstein started off the listening session a late Friday night. From silent to loud it was without a break or delay and everything in between seems so natural and life like. I’ve really found myself astonished over the system’s ability to deliver dynamic contrast. The system just played seamlessly, almost limitless in terms of dynamics. Even when pushing the limits of the Conquest´s 18 watts the speakers didn’t fall apart or for that matter lose control. There are no muddy or flappy bass, just a deep and very well controlled pressured attack with so much decay and detail that it is hard to understand how it is possible from a relatively small two way design, especially given the overall efficiency. The 8” woofer from the AN/E SPe HE was doing some silly and unexpected punches and to be honest it is a bit surreal that this is possible with just ONE 8” woofer in each speaker. Bass kicked in with a punch but still firmly controlled. The bell playing in the start of the track was highly extended and with very crisp attacks. Shaman's Dream - The Four Elements – A very non audiophile recording that sounded just brilliant.
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