Nordost Blue Heaven AC Cord Review

[Hayabusa]

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:
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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 mention of speed of proven technologies; only that they are safe.

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

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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:
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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:
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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:
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Once again we get the superlative performance we expect. Now let's switch cables to Nordost:
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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:
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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/

great test! Running on dimmer waveforms and still the same performance proves a lot!

 

[FrantzM]

Hi

Back in the days I was a believer in cables ... Never could wrap my head around the idea of an AC cable making a difference but .. the others? The Interconnects, speaker cables? Yes .

I asked at a show, to a "cable designer", What differentiated their entry line cables, to the Top of The Line, aside from girth? The "designer" cited, confidentiality ... proprietary information... ...In the case of Nordost, at one point, they were using a notion of percentage of the speed of Light for "wave" transmission in their cables... the TOL would transmit, " waves" at 99.98% of the speed of light, while the entry line would be, "only" at 99.90% or some other made-up number I don't think they continued this practice, it might have had presented some legal point of weaknesses. Some people could, like this @amirm , could take the time to measure .. Better to leave the entire thing to fioriture and other easier to defend, subjectivities...
We all know by now these things are the proverbial, highway robberies. Their staunchest defenders, remain, sadly, subjective audiophiles and they are sometimes sincere. As for the HEA press... I would maintain that these are , for the vast majority, cynics with a complete absence of ethics...

Again thanks @amirm , for ASR.


Peace.

 

[testp]

nice.. i do wish one day panther would pick a winner out of this pot

 

[CapMan]

I believe that these mains cables are actually tested here - honestly , how can you expect to see differences if you’re not prepared to go to the sub atomic level for your measurements

 

[misureaudio]

A well written paper comprising the 'speed of light 'argument is here, unfortunately it's in italian, and a pdf.

https://www.audioreview.it/documenti/tecnica/AR263_SUONO_DEI_CAVI_DI_POTENZA.pdf

The experimental setup for the measurement session is however clearly explained.

 

[fpitas]

So in the land of magic power cords, does a longer one just sound that much better?

 

[HarmonicTHD]

So in the land of magic power cords, does a longer one just sound that much better?

Yes definitely. More time (distance) for electron cleaning. Those dirty little buggers.

 

[fpitas]

Yes definitely. More time (distance) for electron cleaning. Those dirty little buggers.

Gotta scrub them up. No telling what they've been into

 

[HarmonicTHD]

Gotta scrub them up. No telling what they've been into

Yep. BTW is your “clean” audio power station up and running by now. Love to hear your impressions.

 

[fpitas]

Yep. BTW is your “clean” audio power station up and running by now. Love to hear your impressions.

Yes; I can hear the spaciousness of the entire substation now, and the delicate nuances of the magnetic field transiting in the transformer cores. But I'm sure people without a very resolving system would never hear it.

 

[HarmonicTHD]

Yes; I can hear the spaciousness of the entire substation now, and the delicate nuances of the magnetic field transiting in the transformer cores. But I'm sure people without a very resolving system would never hear it.

Very good. I break ground for mine next week. I was still convincing the neighbors but since the neighbors wife can hear the difference from her kitchen all is ready to go now. (I stop now with OT. ;-))

 

[CedarX]

Many subjectivists deliberately reject a world bounded by the rules of science or logic ..... or sanity. They believe that there's "something else", or "something more", and that it's not scientific, but "something else" or "something different". IOW, they believe in a world beyond science or in exception to science.

It’s very much a religious belief: “there is something else”, “something more”, that science can’t explain. If you buy into it (literally in this case…), you’re rewarded with some positive outcomes: by explaining nothing, it explains everything… And, it makes you happier !!!
In the big picture of our f-up world, buying a Nordost AC cable is a fairly benign act, but I naively hope that this kind of review will impact ‘some’ subjectivist audiophiles so that they can—freely—decide if it’s good for them…

 

[fpitas]

In the big picture of our f-up world, buying a Nordost AC cable is a fairly benign act, but I naively hope that this kind of review will impact ‘some’ subjectivist audiophiles so that they can—freely—decide if it’s good for them…

In the sense it doesn't hurt anyone or anything but your wallet, yes. But in a larger sense you're not only feeding a personal delusion, but also funding fraud.

 

[hansik]

The best cables I ever tested.

 

[JayGilb]

As I recall, Floyd Toole writes about sighted tests vs blind tests. People cannot ignore what they see and the results get distorted by a bias created when they know factors such as brand, size, price, etc.

Has anyone every done ABX audio tests using only blind people ?

 

[CapMan]

So I was passing a Kiehl’s cosmetics shop as I read this thread . This was in their window display - same old pseudo science complete with a DNA helix to add some weight to their science-based potions and lotions. I wonder what sort of blind testing they did to substantiate the claims on their window poster

 

[voodooless]

A well written paper comprising the 'speed of light 'argument is here, unfortunately it's in italian, and a pdf.

https://www.audioreview.it/documenti/tecnica/AR263_SUONO_DEI_CAVI_DI_POTENZA.pdf

The experimental setup for the measurement session is however clearly explained.

What a bunch of nonsense. I have no idea what this is supposed to prove.

 

[fpitas]

What a bunch of nonsense. I have no idea what this is supposed to prove.

I guess this is anent the "high speed" claim from Nordost.

 

[voodooless]

I guess this is anent the "high speed" claim from Nordost.

You'd actually expect a low-speed cable. If you want to filter out stuff, you'll need to limit bandwidth, not widen it.

 

[fpitas]

You'd actually expect a low-speed cable. If you want to filter out stuff, you'll need to limit bandwidth, not widen it.

Yes, and Amir noted that. We're in the land of magic cables here, through the looking glass as your wallet is stolen.