Nordost Valhalla 2 - Susceptible to Noise?

@battbot , yes, but in my case the difference is night and day…..

sorry for that!

But seriously - during the day the sound is downright dull and boring.  At night, it is SO different. Immersive soundstage, detailed, musically engaging, like a veil/fog is lifted.

Our tenants have a baby and thinking maybe their baby monitor during the day is adding to RF noise.

Looking for any way to mitigate this on my Valhalla 2 cables.  Without modifying them with DIY R-C filters, etc?

@dancarlson10 , thanks, what grounding device did you use, and how does it hook up to your system?

Would added shielding help - something like this which I could cut to line my speaker wire with….

Lol….

So I’ve since watched an Audiosciencereview that is passionate as always, where Amir “proves” that it is impossible for RF to harm speaker cables.  I put “proves” in quotes because while his explanation makes sense to me, I also am not an expert and don’t know.

Also, Nordost has told me it’s not likely RF that is causing my issue and that it’s all AC.  They said shielding on speaker wires is not done by cable producers and is not needed.

@tunefuldude , I do note the great reviews of the PS-Audio regenerators, but I’m actually more excited to try the Niagara 5000 and Torus RM20 for two reasons:

The Niagara and Torus get just as good reviews at way less cost. Plus, one pro review which is easy to find pretty much rated the Niagara 5000 and P15 evenly with a slight preference for the Niagara which he found more energetic. Finally, there is an Audiosciencereview video where Amir “proves” that the PS-Audio P12 actually degrades the sound. That said, he also “proved” the Niagara 1200 does nothing, so who knows!

I’ve yet to see direct comparisons that put the higher cost regenerators ahead of the lower cost conditioners.

I’ve been avoiding the 20A dedicated line due to the fact that I have no crawlspace or attic, and as such would need to rip out a lot of drywall to run the new lines.

However, just today my local dealer told me to consider running the line outside my house. They were strongly urging me to do that - said “you won’t know what hit you”. Also gave me a card for an electrician who won’t rip me off.

@dancarlson10 , what gauge wire are you running? 10AWG? Any special wiring, or anything unique at the breaker box other than the 20A beaker?

@steakster , @dancarlson10 , interesting discussion around Nordost. I too am rapidly developing a neurosis around noise, as my system taunts me after midnight when everything is fantastic. I know precisely what you are talking about @steakster when you can hear the air and subtleties around the instruments and not just the instruments themselves. Once you hear it it is impossible to go back, at least in my case!

@dancarlson10 it sounded as if you had some other grounding device besides the QB8, "All you need is a qb8 good grounding device after that", but probably just my misinterpretation. I don’t quite get the QB8 "primary ground" thing, and how this is any different from the ground on the other outlets.

Also - if I don’t require the added "conditioning" to be rid of AC noise after switching to dedicated 20A lines, I really, really like the Nordost approach of not adding or subtracting anything from the tonal balance. That said people say the same about Torus too, I think.  Wonder how my fancy Audioquest Dragon HC cables would work with Nordost QB8 though.  I did try the Valhalla 2 power cord and unfortunately found that bass was lacking vs other cords, with my Diablo 300 (my dealer said other Gryphon owners reported similar complaints with the V2 cord).  My V2 speaker wires are second to none though.  Except Odin of course!