Product Review
 

Nordost Heimdall Analog Audio Interconnects and Speaker Cables

Part II

April, 2006

John E. Johnson, Jr.

 

Secondly, the new WBT connector locks to the jack. As shown in the diagram below, you loosen the connector barrel, then put the plug into the jack, then tighten the barrel. This not only keeps the plug from accidentally coming out, but it also enforces good contact.

The speaker cable is shown below. You can see that the conductors are arranged in sets of six, for a total of twenty-four.

In the second photo, a close-up shows that the spiral repeats itself about every 1/8".

OK, so what does all this do for the sound? I tested the Heimdalls with a Sony SACD player, BAT VK-5i preamplifier, BAT VK-75SE power amplifier, and Magneplanar speakers.

I really didn't know what to expect, but what I found was that the sound was not necessarily more detailed, but rather, more delicate. Everything had a very fine edge to it. Not sharp. Just delicate. It is very hard to put the sound into words, but that is the best I can do. The sound was so finely woven, in fact, that I found myself drifting off to sleep as romantic harp solos played. That does not mean the sound was uninvolving or soporific. It simply felt so good, I went into an Alpha state of meditation, which is one of the things I love to do with chamber music.

The bench tests showed some interesting results. Capacitance for the interconnects was about average, while the capacitance for the speaker cables was the lowest we have measured so far. Inductance was about average for both types of cables. Resistance was higher than average for interconnects, but lower than average for the speaker cables.

I could not get a capacitance reading at 100 kHz for the Heimdall speaker cables. The capacitance was apparently too low to measure.

Conclusions

Although still not what one would call "inexpensive", Nordost Heimdall cables give consumers the Valhalla micro-mono-filament technology in what is at least, more affordable form.

I classify the sound as more "delicate" than am used to (I am not wired with Valhalla at this point), which I found to be incredibly relaxing.



- John E. Johnson, Jr. -

© Copyright 2006 Secrets of Home Theater & High Fidelity

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