Truthfully, there is no way to judge cables except to borrow a pair, install them in YOUR system, and evaluate it for yourself. Nordost is beautiful, but the Valhalla's tend to be a little light sounding. They are fabulous with some euipment, and not quite so on others. Price should mean very little in your quest for cabling. Check out Anti-Cables on this site, or go directly to Anticables.com to look into this stuff - very cheap and excellent. I have a statement system and use this stuff.