What to replace Nordost speaker cable?


I currently use Nordost Red Dawn speaker cables between a Krell 400xi and Focal Micro Utopia Be's. The cables are 2m long and I think sound pretty good in my system. That being said, they are a huge pain to connect and situate in my equipment rack because they are flat ribbon cables. I'm moving soon so now would be the best time to replace them.

I'm looking for recommendations, but I do like the "Nordost" sound or lack of or whatever it's called (no flames please). I've looked at Cardas, Kimber, Audioquest, etc. as they all have a good reputation and I'm not very familiar with other smaller companies. I will say this though. I tried Canare starquad cable and yes, it sounded different. Muted and rolled off highs, compared to the Red Dawn.

Another option might be to just get 3m Red Dawn for a little more slack.

Thanks,
gherrera1
gherrera1
I've been through the cable merry go round for years. I have owned or tried many, many, high end cables.

Anyway, I have found that the most important feature of a speaker cable is the actual wire conductor. All the fancy dressings and grounding schemes just add more hype and cost.

So what am I using now???
Well, I now have made biwire cables made out of pure solid soft 5N silver wire. One lead is 14 ga and the other is 18 ga. Both are threaded through high quality large diameter teflon tubing. All together with WBT silver spades at the Amp end they cost me about $1000 bucks to make.

Some think that silver cables are bright sounding , but these are not. I believe that the soft silver is what makes the difference. The bass is deep and clearly defined. The midrange is beautiful and the treble is clear. All of that with also a large soundstage. The break in time was minimal probably because of the limited dialectic.

Speaker cables are pretty basic to make and I've got to say these cables are waayyy better than anything I have used in the past and I have had some very pricey cables.
Hi Ozzy, your speaker cable construction is very similar to Nordost. They use silver plated conductors in teflon.

And most of the reviews I have read parallel what you hear. Well designed silver/teflon cables do not sound bright at all.

Moving from Canare star quad to Nordost Red Dawn cables, I heard a bit more bass and overall clarity. I'm hoping a move up the line will add even more clarity and maybe a touch more bass since Heimdall's have more conductors than Red Dawn.
New Heimdall cables arrived in the mail today. First impressions are mostly positive. Highs are quite a bit more refined than the Red Dawns. Image focus and soundstage is solid. Not that it wasn't good before, it's just that much better with these cables. These cables seem to really balance the entire frequency range, as odd as that sounds. I think that's what reviewers mean by Nordost being "neutral."

The one thing that's worse than the Red Dawns is the bass, or lack of. They sound relatively thin, but then again, I only have about 30 minutes on them. I do recall the Red Dawns took a few hours to fully break in and I'm hoping the bass improves with break in. The bass guitar and kick drum are there, they just don't have the same impact as they did with the Red Dawn cables. The Heimdall's are also 4m long vs 2m. Not sure if that's contributing though.
You're on the right track...you need break-in time. Actually, I like Blue Heaven rather than Red Dawn, which I find rather anemic down below....
What will be interesting is after you have a couple of hundred hrs on the heimdalls to put the red dawns back in and then give us your impression.