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Nordost Odin or Valhalla 2

Folks, 

Do you feel Nordost cables are worth it's asking price?  What's the proportionate amount one should spent on cables? 

After hearing them at RMAF 2015 and few other brands of cables, I decided to look into the upgrade cost.  I own a decent HT setup and invested over $125K in my pursuit of audio nirvana.  

So I contacted a Nordost dealer to get an estimate on my setup.  The dealer came back with an estimate of $110K on Valhalla 2.  Needless to say, I didn't even bothered to ask the cost of Odin in my setup.  

No offense to the dealers, but I started to wonder the profit markups on high end cables.  I do hear stories about some unscrupulous dealers who sell high end products to get spiffs from big manufacturers in shape of exotic vacations, free products and so forth if they sell more widgets.  Isn't this corporate hi-fi that only seeks to show returns for shareholders.  To me its pure business, where is the passion for audio?If they are only focusing on providing expensive audio jewelry and targeting individuals with deep pockets then I say, mission accomplished.  

I have much better experience with smaller companies who are dedicated and committed to providing 'magical' listening experience without taking a second mortgage on your home.  I thought the whole idea of audio art is to create aural magic.  

IMO most cables regardless of price point, will get you 80% of the performance of super expensive cables.   So is it really worth spending thousands of dollars more to achieve that 20% or 10% of performance? 

I would like to hear from folks who owns Odin or Valhalla 2 or other comparable brand of cables, what was decided factor in their choice, what other cables did you compare before settling with Odin or Valhalla 2.  

I don't have any hidden agenda or personal vendetta against high priced cables or dealers engaged in selling high end products.  The idea here is to gauge performance vs. cost of super expensive cables. 

Happy Listening!!!

128x128lalitk
bo1972's avatar
bo1972
2,789 posts
 
When you use audio by Tru-Fi, it becomes a lot more easy to understand.

Tru-Fi gives you the information about the properties each individual part owns

Each product owns its properties. I sold and tested Nordost for over 9 years of time. For met it is very easy to understand the properties.

At the end you need to use these properties to the max.

When you don't know the propties ( most people don't know, then you never will understand why the sound and stage is what you hear) audio is a big guess.

I have seen in 18 years of time that the main reason why so many sets at shows, distributers, shops and at new clients sound not that good, is based on the fact that they are mot able to think in properties.

The difference is endresult between Tru-Fi and 'traditional'way of creating audio is huge. 

I would give one advice; stop creating audio by comparing parts when you don't know which properties you bring in and which ones you get out.

This way audio is done by trial and error. This is extremely ineffective!!
jbomber
11 posts
 
I hear from so many vendors and retailers that the high-end is dying; that the number of people willing to invest in their sound is growing fewer and older.  Sounds like high-end hifi is suffering the same fate as local symphony and ballet operations.  It's really an issue of making great sounding reproduced music relevant, methinks.

Okay, so here's what I don't get.  A new, fully loaded, 2018 Mercedes E-Class can be purchased for the same price as a 4M set of Odin speaker cables.  Sure, they're the Odin 2, and the Mercedes is only the E-Class, and not the S-Class, but still...

When you look at the 2 items; the cost of materials and manufacturing -- and it's not as though Germans are cheap labor -- how does 12 feet of silver-plated copper wire with some string and a plastic coating, regardless of precision, possibly justify its cost compared to the materials and labor that go into manufacturing a high-end automobile.  Simple: it doesn't.  Someone -- or everyone along the "food chain" is making a LOT of money, and everyone knows it.

I can buy a touch-screen laptop with all the bells and whistles, B&O sound, blah blah blah, for about $1500.  Some kid who loves his music and his computer is going to look at two pieces of electronics, both of which give him great pleasure, and see one that costs $1500, and is considered top-of-the-line, and one that costs $1500 and is considered entry level, and to achieve truly great, "gob-smack" sound, it will cost roughly a mortgage on a nice home.  I'd venture to guess that one-in-a million of those kids will ever venture any further into the high end.

And so it goes.  We're getting older and fewer and less willing to buy new gear in the pursuit of our love of reproduced music.  I don't know where this ends, but if the industry is dying, or being given away to overseas cheap manufacturing, then something needs to change.


woofy7
3 posts
 
The industry is not dying... that's silly...  just try and get top end Chord products and see the wait list...    now if your spending 200K or more there's few people that will do that... 
schubert
7,386 posts
 
If it wasn't dying there would be no wait list .
joecasey
484 posts
 
Okay, so here's what I don't get. A new, fully loaded, 2018 Mercedes E-Class can be purchased for the same price as a 4M set of Odin speaker cables. Sure, they're the Odin 2, and the Mercedes is only the E-Class, and not the S-Class, but still...

When you look at the 2 items; the cost of materials and manufacturing -- and it's not as though Germans are cheap labor -- how does 12 feet of silver-plated copper wire with some string and a plastic coating, regardless of precision, possibly justify its cost compared to the materials and labor that go into manufacturing a high-end automobile. Simple: it doesn't. Someone -- or everyone along the "food chain" is making a LOT of money, and everyone knows it.

I can buy a touch-screen laptop with all the bells and whistles, B&O sound, blah blah blah, for about $1500. Some kid who loves his music and his computer is going to look at two pieces of electronics, both of which give him great pleasure, and see one that costs $1500, and is considered top-of-the-line, and one that costs $1500 and is considered entry level, and to achieve truly great, "gob-smack" sound, it will cost roughly a mortgage on a nice home. I'd venture to guess that one-in-a million of those kids will ever venture any further into the high end.
Simple, there's demand for it.
And so it goes. We're getting older and fewer and less willing to buy new gear in the pursuit of our love of reproduced music. I don't know where this ends, but if the industry is dying, or being given away to overseas cheap manufacturing, then something needs to change.
Industry is growing if price is rising.   Only dying for ones sitting outside priced out of the market. 
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