High End 2016: Busting a few rumors, the Nordost demo

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The Nordost room I was going to pass on for this year’s Munich coverage, but then I read somewhere on the net about a scheme that the company would be using in their notoriously revealing A-B comparisons.

What was suggesting was that they had the same track recorded twice on a demo CD, but that the second run was done with a “higher output”, and that it was this that was “the reason” why the pricier cable sounded better than the more modest one.

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Which is complete rubbish. Besides having followed several of these demos closely, this year, Nordost was doing the A-B with tonearm cables. But wait — maybe they pressed some “rigged” vinyls ….

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Anyway, they used the excellent VPI Avenger with their SDS external synchronous drive controller, a pair of 3D printed JMW tonearms, fitted with Ortofon Quintet Black MC cartridges, the humongous Jeff Rowland Daemon integrated amplifier, Audio Physic Cardeas 30 year Jubilee limited edition speakers, and of course several Nordost Sort Fut and QRT filters.

Dennis Bonotto was swapping cables in and out, namely the Blue Heaven, the Heimdall 2 and the Valhalla 2, and if you did not manage to grab the differences made by the cables with the ever-rising price tags, then you are one lucky man. Probably deaf too, but still, you will be saving a fortune in cables.









About Panagiotis Karavitis 212 Articles
Doctor and Editor @ Part-Time Audiophile Publisher @ Audiohub.gr