Nordost Power Cables - my latest experience

I know there is system comparability issues for all cables, I just found it interesting the Nordost worked so well with my front end gear but not the amps.

My report was fresh from the box, no break in. I am a believer in break-in, seen it many times. I just found such an improvement with the source gear with no break in, I guess I expected the same to continue.

I think the Q-Base QB8 distribution block will be my next purchase, and some solid supports for it.

Hi alfau7

High Fidelity Cables will beat any Nordost cable, especially on interconnects and digital cables, which is what I use them for.

I am on record saying be wary of HFC for speaker cables due to potential mismatch issues. But when they work - they are spectacular.

But I have not heard any of the new HFC Reveal line, which I think is built to a lower price point.

The High Fidelity CT-1 Ultimate power cable was also the best power cable I have ever had in my system. But it cost 15k, is now NLA, and I was never able to own it, only borrow it.

But but but.... I need to talk about the real world, and what I can afford. I like the Nordost Heimdall 2 for power cables, in the low end (if you can call $800 USD cables that) price range.

I also now have the QB8. This is a must have upgrade, and seems to have full synergy with Nordosts own power cables. I have now dumped all my power conditioners, parallel power filtering devices, e.t.c to go to the QB8 - its just better.

The QB8 looks like an empty box with a circuit board in it (the sockets are not even point to point wired, they are soldered to a PCB). I am not sure what magic Nordost is doing but its better than all other power strips or filters.

And now onto the Nordost QKore grounding unit. Revelatory drop in background noise. Nothing harmonically changes, just everything becomes more real and palpable.

I will go on record here to say the foundation of your system should be a Nordost QB4/8 as the power distributor, with its ground post connected to the QKore 1. And put both these boxes on decent footers.

This should be a priority purchase before any other cabling. Without this you cannot really hear what your system is doing or what its capable of. With this setup as the foundation, all upstream components and cables start to become easy to hear what they are doing and how they are voiced. But at the same time digital fatigue and harshness is reduced, especially with the QKore connected.

however I just couldn’t get along with the associated speaker cables... like attempting to force the signal through a strangulated lead pipe !

That’s because their speaker cables were just the same transmission line coaxial design as the IC’s and digital cables. So the impedance was very high and they could not drive low efficiency speaker well at all. Anything above 90db was fine though, but that cuts out 80% of potential speakers out there.

I still use the CT-1 Ultimate Reference for IC and spdif, and will keep them forever.

+1 Nordost Qbase. My system has 3 QB4’s - each on a different circuit. I use only the primary earth socket for my parallel filtering conditioners. Great SQ.

With so many QB4's it will be difficult and expensive for you to implement the QKore system. But if you can do it check it out.

+1 for qbase. I replaced a power conditioner costing 5 times more than qbase.
And from my experience, I feel sort kones are indispensable for qbase and qkore.

Yes agreed. I also experienced large gains using Stillpoints Ultra SS on both of them as well.

I was very surprised what a difference isolation footers made to already great power foundations products.

Have not tried the Sort Kones yet though.