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Art Dudley Listening - Stereophile Dec '09 Nordost

Reading this month's issue of Stereophile, I came across Art's monthly column - Listening. The overall theme was building a foundation for a given system, whether it be physical, mechanical, electrical, etc.

The Nordost boys came to his house with platforms, quantum field resonators, and Nordost cables. At the moment, I do not have the resources to investigate platforms or quantum field resonators even though in the article, they do work to some degree.

My question is concerning cabling. More specifically, Nordost cabling. The folks from Nordost recommended using cables within a similar line and performance specifications. For example, not using Valhalla speaker cables with Blue Heaven interconnects. What caught my attention, and seemed counter-intuitive, was the cabling they chose. From memory, they used Tyr Speaker cable, don't recall the IC, and Vishnu power cables. Basically, the highest, and therefore most expensive, cable was the speaker cables. Cheapest was the power cords.

When assembling my system, it seemed to me that I would be better off moving up the Nordost IC line, then SC, and finally PC's. Am I missing something here? My interconnects are Quattro Fil, speaker is Red Dawn, and PC is Shiva. Should I have gotten better SC and lower line IC's?
gherrera1
buconero117
2,311 posts
 
Can you hear differences in cables? Absolutly. Do these differences show up in properly conducted double blind testing? Hardly ever. Dudley should be ashamed of himself for not using a double blind approach to reviewing cables.
plato
1,543 posts
 
I don't think I can recall any instance (in recent times) of a subjective audio reviewer using the double-blind approach to doing any equipment review, cable or otherwise. So if Dudley should be ashamed of himself, it shouldn't be for that reason. I mean, it's not like it's common practice in the industry...
stewie
182 posts
 
Plato is right--(and with a moniker like Plato, how could it be otherwise? :))--it isn't Dudley's problem, it's the industry's problem.
darkmoebius
899 posts
 
12-09-09: Buconero117
Dudley should be ashamed of himself for not using a double blind approach to reviewing cables.
Only on cables? Why not components, too?

Seriously though, how could any publication afford to do double-blind tests? I'd think that requires at least twice the staff and probably 4x amount of time.
gherrera1 OP
88 posts
 
Blindjim, I just found it odd that the speaker cables where the highest line, followed by the interconnect, and finally the power cable. I can see their reasoning in using low end power cables because in my system, they made the least difference.

However, when assembling my system, my reasoning was that the interconnects deal with the lowest level signal and therefore must be of the highest quality I could afford, hence the used Quattro Fil XLR. Once the low level information is lost, no speaker cable will be able to make up for it.

Nglazer, I can agree in that it may not be a good idea to use all Nordost. I've swapped out the Red Dawn SC for some Canare DIY cable and the top end did get a little subdued. Not by much, but enough to take the edge off an overly bright system. For me, I like my Nordost set up. Quattro Fil IC's, Red Dawn Rev2 SC, and Shiva PC's.
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