@ghdprentice over the course of the last month I’ve ordered some Odin Gold RCA interconnects from 3 different vendors, at similar prices, all using pictures that don’t allow you to tell differences if there are any as you purchase them.
-The first order sounds very good, connectors are on the flimsy side but, the inside construction mimics the genuine HoloPlugs, with low mass design, and great sound.
-the second order, with STRICTLY IDENTICAL WIRE, had more solid feeling plugs that were unfortunately impossible to take apart, that only LOOKED remotely like Holoplugs from the outside but on closer look are just basic heavy brass (? or worse) connectors with thick metal construction. Those cables sounded truly awful, flat and dead and "dark", like a low-pass filter had been used. I returned them all (without any hassle).
-the third and last order came from a store that I’m accustomed to and never disappoints (AudioConnector store) and I thought would be identical to the first order, but it is NOT. This time the wire itself is slightly different (you can see it when you lay the cables side by side) and the plugs are yet another version of the Holoplugs, similar to the first order with low mass connectors, but a bit more solid feeling. This cable sounds great too, very slightly different from the first one, but very good.
All this to say, there are indeed many variants which use the same stock photos and are sold at similar prices, and it can be a real crapshoot. Get the best ones, and you will be rewarded with sound quality way above the asking price. Get the wrong ones, and you will wonder what the fuss is all about. My advice would be to stick with products that show the best buyer reviews, and sellers that consistently sell you good sounding cables. Having the possibility to return without hassle is also recommended, some sellers offer that option, some don’t.
Are they giant killers? I never owned any truly high end cables, but I’ve owned a few different VanDenhul including the full carbon offerings, a few entry-level Nordost, QED (well ok that’s definitely entry level), Mogami (just for a try), Fadel Arts, and I’ve tried a couple of Dutch pure silver cables whose brand name I forgot (very small company). All those cables (if you exclude the Mogami) were 2 to 4x more expensive than the average "Nordeast Odin" cables, probably more than that for the Dutch silver cables, and I vastly prefer the Chinese cables in my system. Doesn’t make them giant killers, but good value - which isn’t so bad already.
I also have a couple of internet buddies who have replaced their 3K to 5K cables with fake Odin, which is maybe more a matter of system synergy, or personal taste, but it’s worth mentioning - without making too much fuss about it. In the end, is it reasonable to compare a 60$ cable with a 6000$ cable? I’m not sure. The fact that, in some cases, it can come close enough, sure is impressive but might just be some very subjective opinion. After all, there are people who PREFER to use 30$ Mogami cables.
Then there are the power cables. Those are quite new to me, in general, as I kept the stock cables for very long. And I don’t have much to compare. But, there’s a HUUUUUGE gap between, say, a DIY effort based on Ollflex cable, or a similar "artisanal" entry level sold through eBay or Amazon, and a similarly priced fake Odin. The last Odin Gold power cord I purchased, which looks cheesy as hell and costs just 58$ for about 4 feet, may very well be the very best power cord I own, instantly bringing my system up a few notches, with better midrange detail, much deeper stage, blacker backgrounds, tighter bass, better transparency... not something that usually happens with a 58$ power cord. Hell, with most 58$ power cords, you barely hear any difference.
In the end, it’s all a lot of fun, with some (rare, in my case) disappointments along the way, and not much money spent.
|
@axeis1 but is it really what this is about? We are not talking about a fake Louis Vuitton or a fake Rolex. There shouldn't be any "pride of ownership" involved. Those fake cables sound fantastic, and that's why people buy them. Who am I goin to brag around? The two audiophile friends that visit once a year? "Hey guys, look, I've got myself some Odin cables?" of course not. No one cares. They just sound great.
|
@juanmanuelfangioii I'd rather buy fake than start calling people names. I've replaced 100% of the cables in my system with fake Odin from AliExpress and couldn't be happier. Build quality is far ahead of anything that could be purchased for the same price or even 10X the price, and sound quality is simply stupendous. I'v put all my genuine VanDenHul Integration and various others to rest. There really isn't any comparison. They are the best cables I've ever tried in 25 years being in this hobby, by a (very) large margin.
The price that high end companies are asking these days for mere pieces of wires has gone completely over the edge. I won't feel sorry for them. Besides, I strongly doubt anybody who has the means to buy the genuine Odin cables would ever buy anything from AliE, and I strongly doubt the fakes are hurting Nordost. Thank goodness there are still enough morons who believe anything has to cost 4 or 5 or 6 figures to sound half decent.
A pair of fake Odin RCA cables costs between 50 and 150$ depending on length. A pair of the genuine is what... 15.000? 18.000? more? we aren't even comparing the same thing here.
|
@juanmanuelfangioii AHAHAHA
Come on, give me a break. You just CANNOT put fake baby food and counterfeit 15.000$ high-end audio cables in the same argument. Counterfeit cables that are built by the same Chinese companies who build their own original "brands", and probably the same companies who do an awful lot of OEM work for the rest of the world. They are not the same people who make fake baby food and fake medication. A little bit of nuance wouldn’t go amiss.
I’m just an audiophile with a low budget but a big DIY (mostly) system. I’ll buy whatever sounds best that I can afford, if that means buying knockoffs then so be it. I would probably prefer if the cables were’nt fake-branded (I actually like the "Nordeast" imaginary brand some of us use to describe them, they should use it) but l won’t lose sleep over it. They use it to attract people’s curiosity, and it works. No one ever got fooled into thinking they were buying the real thing - because this is NOT baby food.
Ethics and integrity? I sure hope you’re a paragon of virtue yourself, to be so judgmental to others... but mostly I’ve noticed this type of excessive reactions towards counterfeit cables (and towards most cheap things coming from china) comes, in our hobby at least, from a mix of audio snobbery and basic racial prejudice.
"NoW Go eNjOy YoUr fAkE CablEs" >> I will, and I’m actually going to order the new "Gold" version to compare it to my Silver ones :-) . Apparently, it sounds quite different, and some find it even better. Loads of fun for us the poor! ^^
|
@juanmanuelfangioii I did that, for years. I've spent what (for me) is a small fortune on various EU and US brands. My last interconnects were 300$ a pop and, having a tri-amped system, costs add rather fast. Then one day you try a 50$ knockoff cable and it sounds better than any cable you've heard in 25 years hobby, crushing your existing cable, and being cheaper to booth? Well, let me tell you, you BUY IT, and you buy MORE OF IT. We only live once.
Why can't a EU-made interconnect sold for 300$ sound as good, I don't know, maybe it's time we ask the cable companies why 300$ in Europe buys you 2 feet of ENTRY LEVEL CABLE.
|
I just replaced my Odin 1 knockoffs with the latest Odin Gold knockoffs and, my oh my, they sound wonderful. The first version was already great but these are just amazing. And they are not broken-in yet. It's going to be fantastic.
|
@spenav looking at the Odin range of products, there are more similarities than differences in build geometry and general ideas between the counterfeit and the genuine - if you exclude the speaker cables whose counterfeit are spirals and not flat ribbons like the genuine. The fake Odin interconnects for example could be using basic multi strand wire in a sleeve that looks like the real thing from the outside, but no, you DO find the silver plated solid core wires in a spiral arrangement and even the tiny thread that separates each core from its teflon sleeve is there. And so is the screening sleeve. So of course the genuine will have much more attention to detail and better materials and everything but looking at the counterfeit I'm absolutely not surprised it sounds so good. The basics are there.
|
@spenav it’s also no surprise that the best sounding Odin counterfeits are those who are using the best copy of Nordost’s Holoplugs.
I recently ordered a few pairs of Odin Gold RCA ICs; from two different vendors and at very similar prices.
The first pair uses Holoplug RCAs that use the same general ideas (very low mass) and same connection scheme of the + and return wires as the genuine, and it sounds very very good. The second order uses EXACTLY the same wire but uses basic heavy brass RCA plugs that only look like Holoplugs from the outside shell. Those were extremely disppointing sound wise and I had to return them for a refund.
The devil is often in the details!
|
I think it is important to mention that a lot of AliExpress vendors are now offering free hassle return in a 15 days window. Being able to return the disappointing cables for free, with a return sticker sent to me and everything, was fantastic.
|
@rfnoise the Gold Odin RCA with the good sounding connectors is this one:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004390953007.html?spm=a2g0o.order_list.0.0.21ef1802dqG3tr
there are probably others, of course. But it’s impossible to tell from the pictures (the two vendors I tried for the Gold Odin use exactly the same pictures).
The connectors will feel cheap and flimsy, the rear part of the shell is plastic, but they SOUND good.
There is another vendor that usually sells good stuff, it's the AudioConnector Store. I haven't bought any Gold IC from him so I don't know which version he sells but I've bought quite a few other things and it was all good.
|
@thyname have you seen the world we live in? I'm all in to make the world a better place but I doubt shaming a bunch of audiophile geeks buying counterfeit audio cable is the place to start...
|
@rfnoise that Underwood power cord is definitely exactly the same as the "Accuphase" branded PC sold on AliExpress. I have a couple of them, they're OK and look great, but I would NEVER pay 300$ for one. They are 20$ on Ali. For 300$ you can buy two extremely good PC on Ali...
|
@ghdprentice you must have bought some very bad fake Odin. If I except the last Odin "Gold" ICs I returned because they sounded overly smooth and dead, I’ve never had a single fake Odin sounding bad. Some take a bit longer to burn in. But I’ve never had a single one sounding harsh, trebly, compressed - maybe slightly congested and dynamically challenged before burn in, but that goes away quite fast.
In any case they all turned way better than they have a right to be at the price - and I vastly prefer them to all my "genuine" cables which include VanDenHul and (entry level) Nordost.
Bear in mind I’ve never tried any off their XLR cables, only RCA, but still, I guess you just purchased some very bad version (bad solder, wrong use of the cable geometry, whatever).
The speaker cables were the only ones sounding very bad at some point. They took ages to break in in my system due to the very high sensitivity of my speakers and the very low current traveling through the cables. At some point they became so harsh and congested and bass shy that I almost took them out of the system, but I’m glad I didn’t, because they now sound fantastic, smooth open and transparent.
Of course I never compared them to the real Odin cables, but in my opinion the right versions of the counterfeit cables can easily compete with cables at 10x the price, which is already not so bad.
|
@rickysnit exactly, Chinese counterfeit have been there forever, they're a part of life and one could say they're a cultural thing - in the meantime Rolex has never sold so many genuine watches, stores are empty as there is too much demand vs production, with prices skyrocketing in the stratosphere, and I'm not overly worried about LVMH either - smame as I'm not worried for Nordost! In the end I would say those counterfeit cables hurt the smaller, less known brands more because they can sound just as good for a fraction of the cost.
|
I received this Odin Gold power cord yesterday (EU version), installed it on my analogue active crossover (where I didn't think it would have much impact) and HOLY CRAP. from the very first second, the scene widened, deepened, mids are smooth and liquid, detail is there but zero agressivity, this is so far the best power cord I've tried in my system - and it's a cheapie! Small gauge, tho, so probably not suitable for power amps or subwoofers.
Now my impressions are from a brand new PC, so we will see how it evolves after burn in, but in all logic it can only get better (after some rollercoaster with difficult moments of course). Fingers crossed!
https://fr.aliexpress.com/item/1005004190080033.html?spm=a2g0o.order_list.0.0.21ef5e5bR51SKw&gatewayAdapt=glo2fra
|
@rfnoise give them time. All the Chinese Odin have one thing in common: they change, sometimes dramatically, during burn in, and always for the better. they will mellow down, be more dynamic, and bass will be less restrained.
What I do sometimes is go to YouTube, select some burn-in tracks (there are many) or pink noise track (most of those are around 10hours) and, if I have to burn in interconnects, I just turn off the power amp, and push the preamp almost to the max (let's say, volume at 2pm) then go away and just let it play for hours. It really helps. of course, it's less practical for speaker cables ^^ haha
|
|
@bigtwin are you using a full cable loom? are you burnin in both interconnects and speaker cable at once?
Just so you know, I have two runs of Chinese Odin speaker cable, one going from the low mids / bass amp to the bass horns, and one going from the mids/high amp to the mids/highs horns. Active crossover frequencies are 60 and 500Hz, with the <60Hz going to two active subs. Anyways, that’s just for context.
When I first plugged the Odin speaker cable, I thought they sounded very nice, smooth and detailed, then things started to change for the worse, they became harsh and congested and just plain wrong sounding. I almost took them out of the system.
My drivers average 105dB/W/m sensitivity, hence "normal" listening levels see only a tiny amount of current passing through the wires. Burn in wasn’t easy. To get enough current and speed things up, I would have to play at SPLs which are totally incompatible with any kind of neighborhood.
In any case, after a long and very stressful period (I’m really not rich, so two runs of Odin speaker cable - even the Chinese version - max length, that is starting to represent some expense for my meagre wallet, and it’s not something you can easily resell, for sure, so I was bummed) the cables started to sound good again, then very very good. It’s the most extreme burn-in rollercoaster I've ever experienced.
|
@spenav the cables sold by RM Digital are a VERY different lot, much more expensive, and you can immediately recognize them even just looking at pictures, especially when it comes to the latest "Odin Gold" generation. They use a totally different wire.
I'm sure they probably are very good, and well built, but the thing is, most positive reviews that you read online are for the cheap ones sold through some other stores, at a 1/4 of the price of the RM offerings. and indeed, the "cheap" versions (at least those that come from good vendors and ave been put together with care) DO sound fantastic. Maybe I'll try some RM at some point but, I need a lot of cables, and there's a point were "attention to detail" doesn't matter if the difference is mainly cosmetics (I don't care if my cables don't look like the real deal, I just buy them for the sound quality and low price).
|
@tweak1 I also own two Gold PCs. One on my active crossover, one on my DAC. The most impact was with the active crossover but on the DAC (the last I bought) I get deeper soundstage, quieter / more controlled highs, more details, and a tighter bass. On the active crossover I got all those improvements too and a much larger image on top of that, very impressive. All in all, despite the ridiculously low price (60$ each) the cheesy looks and the fact that the gold leaf around each wire apparently doesn’t work at all as screening, those two Gold cables are the best PCs I own. Impressive!
|
|
I've just ordered the chinese "Valhalla" speaker cable. They call it "Valhalla" but it's in fact an exact copy of the Heimdall speaker cable. The wire seems identical to the point that one could believe both come from the same factory. Of course it isn't the case.
They are supposed to be exceptionally good for the price and even in absolute terms.
There is no fake branding on the cable, no sign of the Nordost logo, just an identical wire.
Looking forward to receive it!
|
Well, my "Valhalla/Heimdall" speaker cables have arrived 10 days ago;
they are not fully broken In yet but I can already say those are the best speaker cables I've tried in my system. Great stuff!!!
|
@roxy54 I share the same impression: I doubt Nordost lost a penny from the counterfeits. Two different ends of the market. Budget brands, on the other hand, might have lost a few customers.
I've been using a lot of those Odin counterfeits but have since switched to Xangsane pure silver which is a phenomenal cable (interconnects and digital cable)
Still using "Odin" power cables
I used Duelund speaker cable for a while but I was not fully satisfied. The similarly priced "Valhalla 1" SC sounds much better to my ears. But at least there's no fake Nordost branding on it :)
|
@roxy54 brass is much maligned nowadays but it has been the metal of choice for connectors for almost a century.
Oh yes, some good pure copper or silver (if you can afford those) might be even better, but my Chinese Valhalla SC sound so fabulous with their original, chinese brass bananas that I doubt I’ll ever bother to swap them. I’m not in a hurry anyways.
|
