Nordost cable combination

Your best bet is to purchase them used as I did.  I bought 2 one meter pairs of Nordost Red Dawn Leif Series interconnects for $366.00 a pair here within the last 3 months. 

I have an all-FREY array in my “A” system. (NORSE 2 cable level strata ) ( array includes the ICs , shotgunned speaker, shotgunned matched jumpers, power)

I’ve also owned an assortment of the lower LEIF group option cables. ...including inter Alia, RED DAWN PURPLE FLARE et al.
My take: in brief, any and all of the LEIF group choices don’t measure up even to the lowest level cables in the NORSE 2 groupings. IMO, just go straight to the NORSE 2 High Performance strata of cables if you already intend to keep your other .FREY 2 cables. There is a big step up in audio performance improvement of the NORSE 2 over the LEIF.

TAKEAWAY: Go with Option 2 .... the HEIMDALLs .... full stop.

LITMUS TEST

FWIW, NORDOST presented a heavily attended cable shoot- out at a Toronto audio fest a couple of years ago. I attended it and support the following audio mag review of that event bake-off presentation  rehashed below.

So here is the CANADA HI-FI reporter’s take from that NORDOST cables bake-off exhibit actually performed live at TAVES.They stopped the progressive cables model bakeoff summit at the Valhallas (one below the Odins) with the inference that a move up the model trendline in improvement keeps going further to the ODINs

http://canadahifi.com/taves-consumer-el ... rge-de-sa/

".....I had a chance to sit in on a couple demonstrations in the Nordost room, giving my feet a well deserved break. I’m very familiar with the benefits of high quality cables and use a full Nordost Heimdall 2 loom with my reference two-channel setup. That being said, I always find the Nordost demonstrations to be an “ear-opening” experience. Michael Taylor from Nordost demonstrated the significant sonic benefits of replacing an OEM cable with a Nordost model – in particular

1) a swap of a single USB cable, from OEM to Nordost Blue Heaven ($250/2m), to Heimdall 2 ($500/2m) and;
2) a swap of a single RCA interconnect, from OEM, to Blue Heaven, to Heimdall 2, to Tyr 2 and finally Valhalla 2.

Along with convincing the audience in the room that cables DO matter, I’ve now got the bug to upgrade...."

FWIW....

Thank you, Stereo5 and akg,

yesterday I bought 5 heimdall powerchords, and plug those into the qb8, in wich I put the frey 2 powercord. And as I will have to wait 5 days for the frey 2 speaker cable to come of the burn in machine, I now have the Heimdall 2 speakercable from the dealer. The powercords are cold from the box in my system. And it is already incredible what a great sound my system is producing. I am a little worried, that the Heimdall 2 speakercable will be better in my system as the frey 2, since I already purchased the frey, before it went on the machine. If I would not already bought the frey, I would have been happy with this Heimdall 2 speakercable. So I will have to wait, before I know if I Made the right choose with the frey speakercable. The all Heimdall powercords, produce a far better sound in comparence with the frey 2 on the pre amp, and all others red dawn. As you, akg, already predicted. So I hope the frey2 speaker will not disturb the beautiful sound that is coming from my system now. I also like to hear if the burn in of the powercords change the sound within the coming days.