Nordost fans

IMO you have to go up the line pretty far to avoid thin..i am using Frey from a table but outside that there are much better cables especially in the entry level status.

"IMO you have to go up the line retry far to avoid thin"

missioncoonery-

I never understood/heard that often repeated remark. The latest version does however have a subtle warmth to them. Perhaps the Nordost is removing artifacts in the signal and revealing this "thinness?"  I have no idea. 

It's all subjective,in the ear of the listener, and their wallet.

That said, my lame hearing couldn't discern the micro change of sonics once you get past Heimdall/Frey. 

I’ve never auditioned any Nordost cabling. But, I do have 2 of their QBases. They help clean up noise that my two other pricey power distribution blocks don’t do.

This has been my exact recent experience with a new QB8. I have used many different types of power distribution and filtering products in the past; inline serial filtering, DC blocking, parallel filters e.t.c
All have reduced noise to a lesser or greater degree. 

But I always ignored the Nordost QBase because its just a power strip, and an expensive one for what you get. But it has turned out to be better than my MIT filtered strip. A slight noise when putting my ear to the speakers, that I always thought was caused by my power amp, completely disappeared after installing the QB8. The ground lift on sockets other than primary earth must really be doing something...

I think Nordost power cables, and their ethernet, HDMI and USB cables, are all worth checking out and are very good in comparison to, for example, the equivalent Audioquest and Wireworld.

But its their Speaker cables and interconnects which I think are overrated and overpriced for what you get. And yet its these cables which most people will try first. For the same money there are many other options.

FWIW I recently switched from a really good AQ current silver model interconnect to Valhalla 2. I was biased against the Nordost thinking it might be thin and bright. Truly from the first note my sound went from very good to great. Vocals became more prominent in a very good way with a more spacious sound. I would never call them bright or etched but rather very smooth with the kind of detail you would expect. They are not as full in the midbass as one might want in a lean sounding system but adding a Shunyata power cord on the dac corrected this issue which was small anyway. I’ve never enjoyed my system as much.
I thought that the AQ was the stopping place but now can’t go back. I now understand the accolades but hate the price. That’s the ever present hitch.