Nordost SuperFlatLine Speaker Cable Review

[Short38]

I doubt that the review and the product being reviewed can be topped for delusion and alchemy.

 

[Hart]

"Even my wife heard the difference, which was day and night, and she was in the kitchen, in another building...."

re: enjoy the music.com

I love the adjectives they will use to describe an amplifier, it sounds like a wine review: The notes were sweet but lacked overhang, the mids were fluent and cohesive yet jaunty and particular. The highs were tantalizing and firm, and landed with conviction. The bass was transparent and present, but also slightly over-ripe in the finish. I did not witness a bass reflux condition that I see with so many amps.

And if it is an advertiser then: I can't believe what a difference this amp made, like night and day. Anyone would be foolish not to rush out and buy as many as they can. Yada, yada....

I think this site should also rate some of the funniest reviews, enjoy the music might be some of the best.

 

[kencreten]

That kind of review, when you blindly vote waste of money before even scrolling down...
View attachment 292617

Thanks anyway, @amirm

Man that (beating a dead horse graphic) is perfect. If people are still thinking that ... these kind of cables matter much.... What can you do? But, don't take my 2 billion dollar RCA cables away from me, that carry 2 volts, because "I can hear the difference...."

 

[polmuaddib]

With respect: Speak for yourself. ;-)

I think it’s the furthest thing from a waste of time. Much of the audiophile world tries to convince people that things like high priced cables make obvious sonic differences.

I understand and agree with you in general.

But I also think that we have reached a point where enough cables have been tested and the evidence is overwhelming. Amir has tested data cables, power and speaker cables and probably some interconnects, but at this point I don't rememeber. Still, enough.

The point I am making is that, when the next cable review comes out, we are gonna what? Expect something new to come up? Do we need another cable review to confirm what we now know for a fact?

What we do need, for instance, but Amir probably doesn't have equipment for, is some way of testing HDMI cables bandwidth. Because, those cables are tricky when you enter into 4K domain. There you can have blackouts or things not woriking well if the cable is not constructed well. I, for one, would love to see a test if an HDMI cable does have enough bandwidth as advertised.

 

[polmuaddib]

And sure, I am speaking for myself.
Maybe nobody agrees with me, but I don't think I am being disrespectful when stating my opinion.
We ARE here to discuss.

 

[amirm]

The point I am making is that, when the next cable review comes out, we are gonna what? Expect something new to come up? Do we need another cable review to confirm what we now know for a fact?

We did have something new here which was the ease with which this cable picks up magnetic interference. Next time someone says audiophile speaker cables reduce noise and that is why the veil is removed, you can point them to this review and show that the opposite is true!

 

[polmuaddib]

I don't think this is new. Didn't some Audioquest cable suffer from something similar? This cable may be worse, but we have seen this poor insulation performance before.

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?attachments/audioquest-wind-interconects-rca-stray-noise-pick-up-ac-mains-audio-measurements-png.89767/

 

[D700]

The cable is threaded through the lift and then terminated? The minimal dual contact area provided by these lifts
Is probably game modifying.

Our renowned lead designer, Steward "Scotty" Scuffleton spent months in the Bahamas perfecting this design. It really is a leap forward.

 

[John_Siau]

First, it is good to see you again John. As I noted earlier, I have run these tests and with a real speaker no less. I have done very deep dives on cables including null tests and such. I have shifted now to taking a bit of break from that methodology and doing quicker tests as the answer doesn't change.

Amir:

I can't blame you for not wanting to waste your time on cable tests. For the most part, the differences between cables are too small to matter (unless the cables are unusually long, or are subjected to high levels of electro-magnetic interference).

Furthermore, the differences between cables are much smaller than the differences between active components (as your DAC and amplifier tests clearly show).

Deceptive marketing has created this myth that cables are one of the most important parts of the audio system when they are really the least important. This is especially true when it comes to power cords.

Select cables on the basis of:

1. Quality of connectors
2. Build quality
3. Type of wire (is it designed for this application)
4. WAF (the music will sound better when the wife is happy)

Special exceptions:

If you are running microphone cables near the magnetic fields produced by electronic equipment (as often happens in a studio or live sound application), you will probably want to purchase star-quad cables, and some brands of star-quad cables are significantly better than others. Star-quad cables can reduce magnetic interference by as much as 50 dB when they are used in a balanced audio system.

If you have an unfortunate 100-foot separation between your power amplifiers and your speakers (as sometimes occurs in live sound systems) you will want to pay careful attention to the DC resistance and inductance of your speaker cables.

In these special cases, the measured differences between cables can be significant.

 

[OShag]

The Nordost SPM Reference is good, just not as good as Valhalla, Mogami, Canare and Cables Matter though…

 

[Vive la dissonance!]

That kind of review, when you blindly vote waste of money before even scrolling down...
View attachment 292617

Thanks anyway, @amirm

You see, the thing is: that horse is apparently yet alive and still, yes still, kicking.

 

[MaxBuck]

At my age, testing results aside, buying something that has "flatline" in the product name is pretty much a not-gonna-happen.

 

[sapphireracing]

<sarcasm>
What a bargain - nearly 50% off!
</sarcasm>

https://www.usaudiomart.com/details...s-with-box-spade-x-spade-excellent-condition/

 

[TrevC]

The Nordost SPM Reference is good, just not as good as Valhalla, Mogami, Canare and Cables Matter though…

You mean it does the job just as well as any other speaker cable with the same resistance but not quite as well as those with a lower resistance?

 

[TrevC]

At my age, testing results aside, buying something that has "flatline" in the product name is pretty much a not-gonna-happen.

It appeals to those that are excessively wealthy but have a flat line in the common sense department.

 

[egellings]

An interconnect review from Enjoy the Music.com:

Conclusion
My experience with the Nordost cables leaves me speechless, if that is even possible. Overall, the difference is nothing short of spectacular. In fact, during the review several friends and colleagues remarked that the reference system for this review has never sounded nearly as good. Personally, I have to agree with them wholeheartedly. I thought the old cables made a huge difference in my system, but the new ones overshadow them exponentially. In conclusion, if you are looking to build a new system or upgrade an existing system, you owe it to yourself to audition these cables. They represent a serious value and stellar performance within their price range. In my case, they have left me with the unchanging fact that I need to upgrade my cables to at least this level, because anything less would be unthinkable.

Speechless even. I used to read these guys a long time ago. Now I think they are out of their minds.

Audiophile orthodoxy...

 

[milosz]

I would be interested to know the capacitance per ft and inductance per ft, as I suspect these would show a difference versus plain dual conductor "zipcord" type wire. Maybe not enough difference to have any electrical effect at audio frequencies unless you were using hugely long cable runs.

I can see some PHYSICAL benefit to flat cables - you can more easily run them under carpeting, or behind baseboard moldings. And surely there must be flat cabling that costs less than Nordost.

 

[theREALdotnet]

And surely there must be flat cabling that costs less than Nordost.

In the past I’ve used ribbon cable like this for speakers. I combined alternating leads as (+) and (-), respectively. With a 50-lead cable and 28AWG per lead you get an effective gauge of 14. I don’t remember the inductance of the cable, but it was quite low. One thing to keep in mind is that the ribbon cable insulation is not the most hard-wearing, so some additional sleeving may be required in some cases.

 

[Mnyb]

The old original Nordost cables looks suspiciously similar to the ribbons used to connect circuit boards in some industrial electronics ? The true origin is surely shrouded in marketing by now so we never know ?

FPC type or FFC type is the closet modern type I can find as an example where the ribbon connects directly into connectors , tried to google pictures, in the decades past they where aviable in more fanciful transparent plastic of blue or gold colour

 

[egellings]

<sarcasm>
What a bargain - nearly 50% off!
</sarcasm>
View attachment 293751
https://www.usaudiomart.com/details...s-with-box-spade-x-spade-excellent-condition/

Get a couple for the kids!