Few years back I did what ghdprentice did, but in reverse way. At the time I had full Burmester system (001, 011, 956mk2) and had the opportunity to get my hands on original Nordost Odins' (first series) Ic's and power cables. (without speaker wires) Used quite qood AQ Sterling Audiotruth cables andthe speakers were SF Guarneri H. Even had an another amp (Krell Evo 302) because I wanted to compare directly Krell to Burmester (wrote a small post about it on Ag as well)
To cut long story short, the Odins were really great, even between Krell amp and Burmester preamp (tried that combination as well aldo somehow I thought that Krell and Nordost would not be a match, but it prooved to be otherwise) I am sure that there are enough descriptions on web about the 'sound' of Odins, so no need trying to be 'poetic' about it now. Just to say that they are much 'better' than Valhalla's (had them too, except the speaker wire) and without 'that typical' Nordost 'sound' which may or may not be prefered by some.
Now the interesting part. While I had them, I tried few other IC's on place of one or another IC, just to see how big the difference would be. The cables I swap were mostly different AQ silver IC's (Diamond x3, Cheetah and Blue Yonder and Wireworld gold eclipse, cant remeber which number) I did not like the BY, but with rest I 'could live', aldo I admit that generally I do not like or use Cheetah (not all AQ silver cables are 'good' in my humble opinion)
While changing cables I realised that finding Ic's that could replace Odin's would be easier that finding different power cables that could do so, but the reason for it might be because they 'complement' with Burmester gear very nicely. After series of different cable trials I have found one not overly expensive Synergistic Resaarch power cable that worked great on my Burmester 001 player ( still have that cable now on even better B. 089 player) On the other hand, I gave one power cable for a loan to a firend who had ARC Ls 17 se and he said that he prefferd that sound (arc 17 with Odin) more than his later ARC 27 with some other cables, if that information is worth to anybody. (maybe he just did not try many cables on that preamp)
My point is that nobody should 'lust' over real Odin's (or anything else for that matter, but thats another story) because, Imho, no matter how 'good' they sound, they are afterall system dependent (like everything else) and will work best on very pricey gear but for far amount less money man can find cables that will provide him quite 'good' sound, even more so if one's gear is not in that category (if price is any indication of quality)
With cables that are long on market, more or less you know what kind of 'sound' you might expect (more people have them and you can read other experiences or try those cables easier) and with that chinese stuff, aldo not expensive, its just one shot, hit or miss. At the end, as some wise man said, the most expensive things are ones that you do not need, no matter how cheap they might be. You might discovery what 'house' sound those chinese cables have (that could be helpful for others too) but with so many of you buying those cables (and in the same time you all have very different systems) I simply cant believe that those cables are good for all of you...or that you cant find something 'better' just for your system...just my 2 cent, as they say...