NORDOST HEIMDALL VS A ZEN SILVER MK II


ANY COMMENTS WILL BE REALLY APPRECIATED
zorro
At one point I had All AZ cabling in my system, including the Silver II. Sounded fine with my Pass Labs amps, Cary CD, and Vandy 5A speakers. But after hearing so much positive feedback on Nordost cables, I decided to give them a listen. I first bought the Frey IC's and all I can say is WOW. So I sold off all the AZ cables here on Audiogon, and installed All Nordost. If you read other forums here, the difference between the Heimdall's and Frey's are slight. I recommend listening to both if possible and you can decide on YOUR SYSTEM. Zorro, cables do make a difference. It did on mine.
Well I've never heard the AZ's but I have Nordost Frey Ic and Sc. To me at first they sounded thin but later realized what I was hearing was more 'air' between the instruments and vocals. The difference between the Heimdall and Frey is ever so slight.

That being said I am currently demoing the new series 2 (my dealer kept the Heimdall's). They are quite different. More low end and much more liquid sounding. Naturally the Tyr2 does sound the best but at it's price point the Frey2 is very close. $8800 vs $3800 for 4m Sc's. Also the series 2 Sc's are NOT available in bi-wire. As far as the Ic I again prefer the Tyr2 and it's price point isn't as dramatic $1400 vs $2400 for 1 meter.
I've read a few times that AZ uses cable from Neotech. I swapped out my Heimdall & BH for all DIY Neotech I/Cs. I've written before that Nordost does something to the sound. At first, I liked what it did (more detail, etc). Ultimately, it didn't sound natural. Even reducing the number of Nordost cables doesn't change the sound much. Just my opinions and experiences. I use a tube phono and tube amp.
Thanks so much guys for reply, I have AZ Silver MK II on my Sony SCD XA5400 connected to Mcintosh C500 and AZ Matrix MK II from C500 to MC 501's and sounds very good but after replaced my pc with 3 Nordost Brahma on the Mcintosh"s and Vishnu on the 5400 the sound went to another dimension,more details,air, huge soundstage and more emotional so that's the reason I'm asking about the Heimdall but I wanna keep my AZ Satori that I have on my Von Schweikert VR4 JR MKII so I don't know if can mix the Heimdall with the Satori's
You might also consider trying another AZ Silver Ref. in place of the Matrix Ref. you have now. Matrix is a nice, full-sounding interconnect, but it can't match the Silver Ref. in terms of detail, air, soundstaging, etc. If those are improvements you're looking for I'd think the Silver Ref. would be a significant improvement while still maintaining things like tonality and musicality that sometimes lose out as other things (like detail/air) increase. Haven't heard the Nordost in my system and they're certainly worth a try as well, but not sure I'd mix AZ and Nordost in my system. Probably better to try all of one and all of the other if possible and decide which house sound works best for your ears/system. Best of luck.