Nordost Blue Heaven AC Cord Review

[fpitas]

Amir, with all due respect, any audiophile power cord at the very least exceeds the universal constant “C” ( speed of light) through wire geometry that creates nano- wormholes along its length. have you not seen Interstellar?

Amir never considers important data like this in his reviews.

 

[pseudoid]

Amir, with all due respect, any audiophile power cord at the very least exceeds the universal constant “C” ( speed of light) through wire geometry that creates nano- wormholes along its length. have you not seen Interstellar?

Yes exactly!
Fiber optic power cables would rid us of all the clutter that copper conductors bring along with them!
If @amirm was around during the "Rural Electrification Act" of 1936, they would have certainly enacted the MAINS AC power requirements with specific limits on Noise, THD, SINAD, etc.

 

[CedarX]

Amir, with all due respect, any audiophile power cord at the very least exceeds the universal constant “C” ( speed of light) through wire geometry that creates nano- wormholes along its length. have you not seen Interstellar?

It reminds me a “paradox” cited years (decades?) ago: when you close a scissor, the point where the blades meet moves forward very fast when the scissor is almost closed. If you imagine a scissor of interstellar size, the speed at which that point moves may well exceed “C”…. which doesn’t contradict anything because that point is immaterial !!!
So any “audiophile” characteristic, being immaterial, can absolutely exceed “C”…

 

[roog]

I feel like I’m stuck in a Douglas Adams radio play! :0)

 

[fpitas]

I feel like I’m stuck in a Douglas Adams radio play! :0)

Once you're pretending power cords make a sonic difference. your imagination is the only boundary.

 

[BDWoody]

I feel like I’m stuck in a Douglas Adams radio play! :0)

Maybe you need 42 of them.

 

[egellings]

Once you're pretending power cords make a sonic difference. your imagination is the only boundary.

Imagine this! A cord maker comes out with an approved audiophool cord that with a plug at one end and a receptacle on the other. You can cascade as many of them as you need to keep on improving amplifier sonics; the more the merrier.

 

[fpitas]

Imagine this! A cord maker comes out with an approved audiophool cord that as a plug at one end and a receptacle on the other. You can cascade as many of them as you need to keep on improving amplifier sonics; the more the merrier.

Whoa! The possibilities for extracting money from idiots is infinite!

 

[egellings]

Whoa! The possibilities for extracting money from idiots is infinite!

Let's start makin' 'em them. Charge a ludicrous price to enhance the plausibility of the design.

 

[pablolie]

Let's start makin' 'em them. Charge a ludicrous price to enhance the plausibility of the design.

"Designed by Science - Pure Silver-Ionized Linear Copper Structure with LK99 Meissner Shielding"

 

[pseudoid]

"Designed by Science - Pure Silver-Ionized Linear Copper Structure with LK99 Meissner Shielding"

I am from nyc: "How Much?"

 

[UberK]

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Nordost Blue Heaven AC Cord. It is on kind loan from a member and costs US $417 at this length (2m).
View attachment 291720
This is "third-tier" product in Nordost line so naturally, it is not going to scream expensive. That is a good thing as the cable itself is kept to less than crazy thickness. It is flexible but doesn't want to rotate which is a requirement for AC cord. Fortunately the connectors are easy to plug in and the weight was not excessive enough to yank your gear off the table/rack. I like the beefy plugs that make it easy to handle the cord. Here are the marketing claims:
View attachment 291722

I must say, I had not heard of "high-speed" as something good in AC cables. After all, high-speed means no filter or else, it would not be high-speed! We will test for its speed in the measurement section. I got a chuckle out of the claim that their claims are "proven." Naturally no such proof was provided.

While the plugs have UL/CE marks on them, the whole assembly has no mention of safety regulation either on the packaging or the marketing material. Only conclusion then is that the cable is not certified which is a sad thing when it comes to something that handles high current/high voltage and can cause safety risk.

Nordost Blue Heaven Measurements
Every time I go into one of these tests I think about how to expand our testing and come at the product from a different angle. While some of this testing may seem familiar, some are new. As usual, comparison is against a generic cable I had handy. In this case, I had a white AC cable that is marked as "I-SHENG" and comes with UL mark on the cabling. Company website says:

"Isheng Electronics is a world-class manufacturer of AC power cords. We offer a wide range of power cords including different NEMA AC power cords and different International power cord configurations. "

There is no mention of speed, or proven technologies; but they do emphasize safety which is nice.

As usual, I perform my high-voltage tests by sensing the wavefrom using a B&K high-voltage differential probe with 100:1 attenuator. Here is my AC waveform using the I-SHENG generic AC cord:
View attachment 291724

We see that the tops of the AC waveform are deformed resulting in a lot of harmonic distortion and noise. Treating this as if the power company is an amplifier, its SINAD is 31 dB. Let's swap in the Nordost Blue Heaven and see if it makes a difference:
View attachment 291725
It doesn't make any difference. Everything bad that was there continues to be bad.

Some say my power is clean. I don't know how anyone could say the above is clean but let's use my B&K AC generator to create a highly distorted waveform, simulating what a dimmer would do:

View attachment 291727

Let's agree that is one bad AC waveform! Our SINAD has now sank to just 5.3 dB! Let's pump that into the Nordost Blue Heaven and see if it does anything to it:
View attachment 291728
Once again it doesn't.

While we are here and have an AC waveform that has nice sharp transitions, let's look at it in time domain with bandwidth of the analyzer expanded to 1 MHz. Here is the comparison:
View attachment 291731
There are actually two waveforms there: one in blue for Nordost and another in red for generic cable. As you see, every pixel has landed on the other demonstrating that there is no difference in any aspect of that AC waveform including its sharp rise and fall time.

So far we have measured the AC waveform. Contrary to what Nordost claims, your audio gear doesn't run on AC. That input waveform is converted to DC and filtered heavily before use. It then drives the electronics that makes audio signal. That is all we care about as that is what we hear, not the AC waveform. So let's test for that.

Topping A90 Power Cord Measurements
Let's use the Topping A90 preamplifier/headphone amp that is on my desk to test the difference starting with generic AC cord:
View attachment 291729

Once again we get the superlative performance we expect. Now let's switch cables to Nordost:
View attachment 291730
Once again no difference.

Let's finish with a proof point of why AC tweaks don't work. I used the chopped dimmer AC waveform and fed it to Topping A90 with the generic cord. Here is the output:
View attachment 291732

Yup, there is not a hair out of place! We have the same superb performance coming out of headphone amplifier even though we nearly destroyed the AC waveform! That chopped up waveform in blue when it, and what came out was the red.

Conclusions
Both our old and new tests prove once again that power cords make no difference (as long as they are thick enough to handle the currents you need). We expanded our tests into time domain and saw no improvement with the Nordost cable. If the cable can't change the AC signal, surely it means that the output of our audio gear remains the same and that was indeed the case. We then proved our conclusions by supplying our test audio product with highly distorted AC waveform and its performance didn't change.

You can buy an AC cord on Amazon for about $10. It won't look as fancy as the Nordost but you can sleep easy knowing that it is safety tested and costs 40 times less!

As an aside, the owner was sold on this cable by an audio salesman that made it sound like his gear would not be complete without it. He couldn't hear a difference so sent it to me for testing.

I can't recommend the Nordost Blue Heaven Power cord.

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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

Brilliant. I have to admit that trying to figure out what to do on cables is really hard.

What about speaker cables? Blue Heaven .. Frey 2 .. Valhalla 2 ...

I have this feeling of confirmation bias (and in fact asked in this thread just now ... https://audiosciencereview.com/foru...ow-opinions-please-on-a-mc451-sf-amati.49446/

It is so confusing and people listing to them and going "I can hear the difference" is a fasting thing to watch (and fills me with dread of confirmation bias)

 

[fpitas]

trying to figure out what to do on cables is really hard

It needn't be. Choose quality cables with good connections. Past there you're spending on looks alone, which is of course your option.

 

[fpitas]

Brilliant. I have to admit that trying to figure out what to do on cables is really hard.

What about speaker cables? Blue Heaven .. Frey 2 .. Valhalla 2 ...

I have this feeling of confirmation bias (and in fact asked in this thread just now ... https://audiosciencereview.com/foru...ow-opinions-please-on-a-mc451-sf-amati.49446/

It is so confusing and people listing to them and going "I can hear the difference" is a fasting thing to watch (and fills me with dread of confirmation bias)

BTW, your link does not work.

Edit: now it does.

 

[Purité Audio]

BTW, your link does not work.

Cable unplugged perhaps.
Keith

 

[Killingbeans]

What about speaker cables? Blue Heaven .. Frey 2 .. Valhalla 2 ...

Same snake-oil nonsense:

Nordost SuperFlatLine Speaker Cable Review

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Nordost SuperFlatLine speaker cable. It is on kind loan from a member and costs US $360. As you see, the cable name is fully descriptive with parallel copper traces running from one end to the other. The edges of the cable are somewhat sharp and...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Audioquest GO-4 Speaker Cable Review

This is a review and detailed measurements of the AudioQuest GO-4 speaker cable. It is on kind loan from a member and costs about US $599. The attached dongle is a 72 volt battery supply that feeds an unterminated wire the length of the cable. Different terminations can be ordered. Here are...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Morrow SP3 Review (Speaker Cable)

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Morrow SP3 premium speaker cable. It was kindly sent to me by a member. The base cost is US $149 but in the bi-wire configuration/length I have, I think the total adds up to $187. Company however has a 38% sale currently which then gets it...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[CedarX]

Cable unplugged perhaps.
Keith

Plugged or unplugged is indeed the most audible difference!

 

[musicforcities]

It reminds me a “paradox” cited years (decades?) ago: when you close a scissor, the point where the blades meet moves forward very fast when the scissor is almost closed. If you imagine a scissor of interstellar size, the speed at which that point moves may well exceed “C”…. which doesn’t contradict anything because that point is immaterial !!!
So any “audiophile” characteristic, being immaterial, can absolutely exceed “C”…

Oh no…it is only a matter of time before audiophile sites start selling “c” speed scissor equipment feet and cable risers.

 

[egellings]

How about little scissors-jack audio component platforms, sort of like amplifier 'foundations'. Have them motorized with a remote control. You could adjust the height on the fly and find the sweet spot where the amount of air in the sound is just right. Get one for a stereo amp, two for mono-blocks, and a third one for the preamp. For a two-box preamp, then you'd need one more. Maybe a clutch of tiny ones would work for the cables, too. The possibilities are endless!

 

[aslan7]

Before I discovered ASR and saw (heard) the great light I bought some fancy red copper power cords from a maker in California. To make matters worse, my wife ridiculed them mercilessly, calling them “big eels.” They were huge in diameter, not very flexible, and not easy to use. But I had read all the nonsense and was a believer. I recently sold all four of them in less than 12 hours, and replaced them with standard cords. I don’t hear the slightest difference. That’s the end of that nonsense.