Nordost Cables Make My Ears Bleed...

Well, I have Nordost Blue Heaven interconnect and Solar Wind speaker cable. Both impressed me very much first with their highly detailed sound but as time goes by I found music more and more unlistenable. Grow tired after a while. The sound is not natural at all, sometimes way too sharp. Can anybody recomend me some decent cables that have warm and natural sound but are rich in detail as well? Not the Grover ones - I'm stilll waiting for ANY reply from Mr.Grover to my several months ago sent email!

 

I'd send him another email personally speaking. I have tried a lot of cables (IC's) and not one comes close to Grover's. As for speaker cable I'm in the same boat as you are and am patiently hoping that Grover will be able to duplicate the magic of his IC's twice with speaker cables.

 

Cardas.

 

How exactly did you email Grover? He's usually very prompt, I assure you.

 

The same way as everybody else - via the webmaster! I'd sent him another one, but still, if we're not talking Grover - what cables can you recomend? Especialy since Grover doesn't produce speaker cables.

 

I've been using Outlaw brand copper interconnects and find them to have a very slightly warm of neutral sound that seems to work well in my system. They have EXCELLENT build quality and are very reasonable.

 

Perhaps the cables are revealing the stridency of the rest of your system. I'd say a major equipment overhaul is due.

 

I've got Harmonic Technology TruthLink Coppers for I/C's
Chose them because, to my ears in my system, they offered some warmth without losing the detail. And the detail isn't exaggerated.

When I listened to MIT and Transparent I was seduced by the detail but they would eventually drive me nuts.

 

The only other "quality" Interconnects I've used, are AudioQuest Corals. They are great for the money, but they do have their weaknesses.

 

Consider making your own?

For interconnects, get the Eichmann Bullet Plugs and some nice silver wire. Either get the very fine 32 ga wire and make a super low capacitance pair following the design of Chris VenHaus (www.venhaus1.com); or get 24 ga silver wire and some Teflon tubing and braid up a pair (3 signal, 4 return).

For speaker cables, the braided Cat 5 design (Chris again) is a lot of work, but very cheap and surprisingly good. Jon Risch's (www.geocities.com/jonrisch) recipe for the Belden 89259 cross-connected design has a number of important technical features and is a top class design at a terrific price.

Allen Wright (www.vacuumstate.com) has silver foil kits that are somewhat expensive, but superb. There is also a simple silver foil recipe that I have used twice that'll give you much of the foil magic. Silver is not cheap though.

You can make wonderful cables yourself and save a fortune.

Regards,
Geoff

 

I had the same experience with Nordost Blue Heaven interconnects and speaker cable. The sound from them was very detailed, but the frequency balance seemed skewed toward the upper registers of the music, resulting in a sound that was bright and harmonically thin. Since then, I have found two cable brands I find much more pleasing: Ecosse Maestro interconnects and MS2.3 speaker cable; and Groneberg TS Premium interconnects (on phono) and speaker cable.

 

To slightly misquote Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon: "You were misinformed."

 

Careful Steve, or you'll be Gorted

Perhaps Steve is feeling a little Krabby...

 

I second the Cardas recommendation.

I may soon give the Grovers a shot and see what all the fuss is about.

Upper end Nordost is amazingly good (but costs a car!), as is Kimber Select.

 

I tried the Kimber Silver Streak interconnect cable, and the sound is definitely less full-bodied than with the Cardas cable I was using before (and afterwards). The difference is subtle, as it should be from changing a cable, but it is there.

 

I was running a complete set of Kimber Select KS-1010's and 8-TC speaker cable. The Grover's left my 1010's in the dirt, no kidding.

 

I use Kimber Select 1021 interconnects and 3035 speaker cables. There is no fatigue when listening to vinyl or SACD and much less when I listen to CD's.

 

I had also hoped to try the Grovers but got no reply after two trys so I will probably check out something else as well.

 

Remember Tim that Grover's been holidays and has only been back for a short time. They are worth it to try again IMHO.

ALP. and here lies the jest...You are running much better speaker cable than I can afford and my 1010's were not fatiguing at all. It's just that the Grover's reveal a much better sound completely. Very neutral as Steve has stated, and an open mid-range and top-end that the Selects that I have just can't touch. My speaker cables are too bright in the top-end and the 1010's accommodate for this, but at a cost of losing what I've stated. I had wanted to buy the same speaker cables as you have but just can't part with over $2000.00 US. to accommodate my wants.

 

Dave, I will try Grover one more time since I would like to hear what all the fuss is about. Keep in mind that I didn't expect to have the cables in my hot little hands three days after I ordered them, I realize they are hand made. I do think it is reasonable to expect a prompt E-mail response though, even if that response is "I'm running 6 months behind and you will have to wait your turn".

 

I have no problem with my MITs. I don't get fatiqued, and they aren't bright, either.

But, I still need to get some Grover! If I weren't trying to get this new PC together, I would have tham already.

 

Dave, Thanks for the input on the 1010's. I actually had the chance to try both the 1011's and the 1021's in my system and was amazed at how much more detail the 1021's gave (somewhere in another cable thread I gave more detail). The reason why I could afford the 3035's is that I have mono blocks and so my 3035's are a 4 foot pair (of course I have a longer run of the 1021 from my pre-amp to the blocks.