@tweak1 The wires that I do not like as much will go to my rear channel MEHs. For surround duty.😆
Revisiting Chinese Knockoff Cables
Why I don/t know, but the first thread has been removed recently. So, having benefited from it greatly, I felt compelled to recap my journey, so that others of limited budgets might make a huge leap that they otherwise could not afford:
When I first got my EVS 1200 I was using Series 8 WireWorld interconnects, speaker cables and Pangea Premier XL 1.5m coax cable. As you mentioned, I was extremely happy with the amp (compared to PS Audio M700s). Eventually I came across the Chinese Cable knockoff thread and first tried the fau-Nordost Odin 1.5m coax which was/is amazing: as they were so cheap compared to the $169 1.5m Pangea, I also bought a 1.0M Odin, but didn’t try it until after I replaced both the WW cables with Odin 2 XLRs and cables. Then I replaced the 1.5m with the 1.0 and was kinda blown away that 0.5m of the same coax could be THAT much better.
While my all SS system sounded very good, it was a bit too sharp, so I ordered Odin Gold speaker cables (at ~ $170/2.5m). Unfortunately one leg must of had a bad solder joint as it barely sent the music . It took a couple months before they replaced it, which I finally installed 2 days ago: BAM. Even immediately, but of course it needs break in time. The weather here (Ft Lauderdale) has been really bad, I have only left for short quick trips. Today we are under a tornado watch, so won't leave, but as soon as I can get out for a few hours I will put on my XLO burn-in disc, which I use on everything I insert, including the M 700s, EVS, and Voyager which expedites break in, which still takes a good 50-100-200 hours!
Summing this up: cables can/do make or break a system. If I had these cables when I first got the EVS, I probably would never have gotten the Voyager, which of course I am itching to compare again, but could still be awhile
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Inspired by this thread , ordered a set of 8tc clones from China last year. Cables showed up in about 3 weeks. Not expecting much, I was pleasantly surprised by the quality, PTFE insulated wire with screwed on brass bananas. Recently was bored and decided to re terminate the cables with some Kimber spades I had laying around from other projects. I was shocked when I removed the original connectors and found the wire had variable sized conductors.
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I have ordered few sets of the Xangsane and the 40th anniversary Accuphase clone power cables and also couple of Odin 2 aes/ebu cables. I will report once I get them and try them for few days in my system. I have several AC and IEC connectors of different materials to try with the power cables. I believe the plugs are more important than the wire. |
I have purchased the following wires from Aliexpress with excellent results... VALLHALA 2 speaker wires 3' XLR Cables.... Odin 2 Gold, Odin 2 silver, Xangsane (the green ones), Xangsane xp9003ag (diy), and I am waiting on the Cardas clear and XLO Power cables Odin 2 Gold ODin 2 silver Cat 5 cable, Odin 2 gold usb Cable, Odin 2 gold I2s cable, Audioquest Thunder My equipment is.. Jays Audio cd2 mk3, Denafrips Pontus 2, Denafrips Athena, Lumin U1 mini, Roon Rock, and Klipsch k402MEHs, with f20 bass bins, xililca xp4080, Icepower 50asx2btl and 125asx2btl amps!
All of the cables sound great and I am playing around with using them on different drivers to see which cable matches the best on my K402 MEHs...which are configured as a 3 way with a pair of f20 bass horns.
I first tried the Odin 2 gold on my highs and it sounded great, then I added it for my mids and it sounded good too. I have a very clear sound that is a little to dry for my taste...so I added the Xansane green and it was a def improvement in the mids, as it is not dry sounding anymore and has a little more detail. I hope to have the 9003ag wires assembled next week to see how they compare. Has anyone tried Cardas, XLO, or Xangsane speaker wires in comparison to Valhalla 2? |
For those who would never buy knock-offs fear not, Ali-E has OEM cables too. About a year ago, after I changed out my Fake name only Nordost Odin 2 cables (XLR and speaker cables) which are very fast, but no fuzz on the peach, probably best with tubes, to Odin 2 Gold I was unable to find a Gold coax, which I felt would compliment the other Golds. On a thread someone had gotten the Odin 2 Gold coax, so I found it on Ali-E but while there I saw a coax from Yangsane that I also ordered. After 10 days of breaking in the Gold 2, including several long sessions with my XLO and Stereophile burn in disks, and hours of listening, I decided to try the Yangsane $43.50/05m + free shipping. WELL! Immediately, it was on a much higher level than the Gold 2, which sounded soft where the Yangsane was fast yet had a natural live quality, and a much more focused and bigger 3D sound stage, and much better bass. My Orders page is under maintenance, so I was unable to give you that link, but this seem close. FYI they also have RCAs, XLRs and variety of cryoed PCs, but I did not see speaker cables HTH
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My first Ali-E experience was after reading a thread on Agon. The experience was very positive, and the prices were so incredibly cheap compared to the rather expensive WW Ag Eclipses that were gifted to me; matching XLR and speaker cable. What could I expect? Curiosity killed the cat, so I decided to stick my toe in the water buying a fake Nordost Odin 2 coax cable, which at < 1/4 the price of my Pangea coax, it a carbon copy spec-wise of the considerably more expensive DHL. It took a month to arrive to S Florida, but wow Wow WOW, and that without any break in. That experience lead me to then replace my very expensive WW Ag Silver Eclipse XLR, followed by my speaker cable (gifts or I would never could have afforded them), and later most of my power cords. While the Odin 2 coax, XLR and speaker cables provided much more information, collectively, they were on the dry side in my all SS system (probably great for tubes though). Further research and I replaced the WW with Odin 2 Gold, except for the coax, which was not available then. Finally, someone on another thread had bought the Odin 2 Gold, after some searching I found it, and 25 days later (4 days ago) I inserted it and although in need of break in it was clear that it was what I needed. The next day I used a burn-in disc on repeat for some 14 hours while I was out. That helped a ton. Last night it was sounding really good on Wilson Phillips Greatest hits which always sounded shrill, but with the Odin 2 Gold was quite listenable with a greater sense of separation. I followed them up with Ray LaMontagne Till the Sun Turns Black a very good sounding disc, but now on another level HTH |
@mrdon 😂 expensive cables for that matter cheap cables will never help a poorly implemented audio system. What of the European and Asian companies that manufacture ultra high end audio cables? It is not just an American thing. Hoy Hoy. |
My own conscience says never buy a knockoff of anything. It cheats the people who took the time and money to develop a good product. I do not have an unlimited budget though. What I did was get a very nice set of speaker cables when they went on Black Friday sale. 60% off Morrow Cable's SP6's. I have some new speaker cables that provide a great more detail than I ever had before and I can sleep at night. |
I bought several of these Nordost copies with the understanding if they did not work out that they should not be resold. At their prices this is still very low risk and not a big deal. You may be a forthcoming seller and honest that these are knock-offs but future buyers may not be. I would not re-sell them and chalk it up as experimenting fun. BTW I am very happy with mine but I don’t play in the $600+ cable market. |
Both coaxes arrived a couple hours ago. Figured I would start with the Odin 2 Gold to compliment my ICs and speaker cables All I did was treat the connectors with Mad Science Audio Graphene Contact Enhancer. Both will take a few days to be at their best, but already it’s an amazing improvement on literally all aspects of the music; depth, width, height, and bass. Way more relaxed, yet great detail First CD is Jennifer Nettles Playin With Fire, a bright sounding CD in my system: Well not anymore. After playing it, I put on my XLO Burn in Disc and came downstairs to report HTH |
@nasaman I would either 1. stuff them in the closet or 2. run some non critical audio video crap with these cables or 3. tie the next few garbage bags with them or 4. dissect them to see what’s inside then tie the next few garbage bags with them
I don’t think I would throw them into a circulation on a used market. |
@hdm Absolutely, thank you. It will be posted and stated clearly as counterfeit and from Aliexpress, China @audphile1 Yes, it did cross my mind that buying them fake, try them out and resell them if they didn't work out. Most of my cables and cords were purchased used here or from USAmart, ranging from $300 to $1,300. Except for 1 HFC Orchestral XLR I bought from Rick for $6,600 (currently for sale). The reason I decided to try these fake Odins is that, given the price and performance ratio, they could be a bargain and if they were actually authentic from Nordost, I’d hit the jackpot. So I bought 1, and because it looks and feels acceptable and decently sounding, I bought 5 more. However, in my main system, they don’t perform as well as my other brands like Sablon Audio, Cerious Tech, Virtual Dynamics, HFC, MIT, Harmonic Tech, Acoustic Zen (very similar sounding), Kimber Kable, Verastarr, and Iced Age Audio (best bang for buck but it is what it is) These fake Odin cords didn’t stay long in my main system but quickly got moved to my 2nd HT system for burn-in and have stayed there since. Occasionally, I bring 1 up to my main, but it is what it is—(very) good sounding but lacking in soul and musicality. Still, very good cords, great material, and very well built structure, they can be valued over $100. |
@nasaman did this question cross your mind when you were buying these Chinese produced fakes? And if it did, walk us through your thought process please… |
First I replaced PCs with Odin 2 on my dac/pre and EVS amp. They were fast but in my system a tad on the sterile sound. I replaced the EVS PC with Odin 2 Gold, also for my speaker cables. These are a much better match in my SS system. Dac/pre I am using a Tekline PC (circa early 2000s) and a bargain PC between CorePower 1800 to 20 ampdedicated outlet from Amazon Audiophile HiFi Power Cord, 10AWG AC Main Supply Cable with US-C15 Female Connector, 4N OFC 99.998% 3 Cores Cable for Speaker, Subwoofer, Turntable, AMP, DAC. (Rhodium Plated 10 AWG, 1.5M / 5.0 Feet) $32! Since then I have been in search of a Odin 2 Gold coax, which I recently found on Ali-E for < $50 but also bought a Grey Knight High Fidelity OCC Silver Plated Coaxial SPDIF Subwoofer RCA TV HD Audio Cable 75 Ohm Digital Audio Decoder Cable for $46. Both should arrive early next week. Anxious to hear if these better the Odin 2 coax, which sounds really good on well recorded CDs, but on the thin side with the many that are not recorded well. Fingers crossed YMMV FYI: I should be getting my LSA Voyager GaN 350 back in service soon. As much as I like my EVS 1200, I much prefered the Voyager. So, we'll see soon if that's still the case. If not, I'll send it to EVS for mods HTH |
@hdm They’re absolutely shameless re-selling a $60 cable for $180 with purchase of an Equi Core (which I hear are quite nice). Wonder if there’s a knockoff Equi Core? |
@tweak1 Thanks…wow aren’t those Silver WW cables $3500+. So interesting how system dependent cables and tweaks can be. Maybe having several tube components make an impact on these IC’s warmth sound. Who knows just very happy the way they sound! |
I started out with Odin 2 Silver ICs, coax and PCs with WW Series 8 silver speaker cables,when I replaced the WWs with Odin 2 everything got faster with darker sound stage, BUT, the warmth was gone. I replaced them with Odin 2 Gold and am very happy. I put the Odin 2 Silver on my video set up where it sounds VG
HTH |
Thyname:
https://www.underwoodhifi.com/products/valiant
vs.
Click the "view more" button in the Aliexpress ad as well. |
I own both the Odin 2 silver and Odin Gold IC’s on 2 different systems and they are fantastic cables. Also use Valhalla Speaker cables and Odin Gold power cords and I have no interest in changing anytime soon. Gone are Viborg, Morrow and DH labs cables. Has anyone done a true comparison between these Chinese Odin Gold and the Odin 2 Silver? Are you able to hear a difference? I haven’t been able to hear the Gold being warmer or much if any differences between the two. |
Concur with everything hdm said above......I have numerous "Neardost" gold in my various systems, and have had zero issues (with one minor exception on one XLR IC...and the ALIEXPRESS seller immediately made it good by sending out a replacement IC). The "Neardost" Gold do have a somewhat warm balance but not at the expense of detail, timing ( PRAT), etc. Superb value for money spent. Cheers..... |
@westcoastaudiophile Both the Viborg and "Accuphase" Chinese power cables I have in use here have very high construction quality relative to other non-Chinese brands I've used. Both use screw down connections at male and IEC end and, as I cryo treat all cabling in my system and have for the past 20 years, I always re-tighten those screw down connections post cryo and burn in before slotting them into my system. I have experience only with the "Neardost" Odin Gold IC's and I have not dissected those. There's a lengthy thread at Head-Fi, however, where some have done so and found them to be fine and in fact incorporating some but not all of the Nordost geometry/spacing/style of connector (the Holo plugs are quite interesting and clearly a very "low mass" design) etc. What I can tell you is that I've had six sets of them in use in two different systems for over a year now. They were all cryoed (so subjected to approximately -190 C for 24 hours plus) and then burned in on Audiodharma cable cooker before being used, have been connected and disconnected numerous times and have had perfect functionality in my system, just like all of the non-Chinese commercial IC's I've used in the past 45 years in this hobby.
They're not just good IC's, they're great IC's and I wouldn't have been purchasing 6 pairs of Nordost Odin Gold IC's for $200,000 U.S. anyway. ;) They're not going to be for everyone-I have a good friend that I recommended them to and he found them to be a bit too warmish, but he has what I would describe as an extremely warm system to start with. On the other hand, I have another friend with a very high end system who also sold off significantly more expensive cabling to replace it with some of the the ridiculously low priced Chinese Nordost stuff after purchasing it as a cheap experiment. Frankly, I find some of the comments in this thread a bit comical. The idea that you would buy an audio cable (supposedly for the sake of comparison) and then say you never hooked it up to listen to it is rather bizarre to me. I never comment on audio forums on anything that I do not have direct listening experience with on a comparative basis, so many of the Chinese knock offs may be crap for all I know. But the Chinese Nordost Odin Gold IC's and the Accuphase 40th Anniversary power cable definitely don't fall into that category. And the latter appears to have been sold by a fairly prominent Audiogon seller for the past two or three years for $350-$400 with rave reviews when it can be purchased China direct for $35-$50!
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Yes, most people choose products with big brand names, but at the same time there are some inexpensive products that are ignored by most people. I started out with some of the big brands, but when I was introduced to some of the products made in China, I realized that a lot of the money I was spending was completely unnecessary. I currently use EBXYA wire at work, and the price is basically $5/ft. |
Yes, Odin Gold IC's are really quite good-can only imagine someone being disappointed with them if they have an overly warm system to start off with. I sold off much more expensive IC's (as in 7X-8X more expensive) and also preferred them to real Nordost Valhalla V1 in a friends system when we evaluated them there. So $100 for two IC's vs. about $4000 Cnd used for the Valhalla V1. Disclaimer: I did have the Odin Gold IC's cryoed and burned in on Audiodharma cable cooker.
The Accuphase 40th Anniversary power cable is a steal at between $25-$45 U.S. per 1M to 2M lengths. I now have 5 of them and they've relegated Viborg 1501's to the secondary system. The Accuphase (bought mine from Audio Connector Store-it is really not identified as the Accuphase cord there for some reason) is unbelievably smooth and refined-just a really natural sounding power cord. A crazy good buy! My guess is it can compete with many of the $1K power cords out there. Hard to believe.
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Agree the Odin 2 and gold cables are an exceptional value. Would like to add the flat Audiocrast (identical to the Valhalla ones) speaker cables are as well. Better than the Odin 2 silver in my systems. These cables are the best cables I have heard in my midfi systems. Easily better than Mogami, Morrow MA3 ic’s and DH Labs AQ-10 speaker cables and others. Granted…I have not experienced true high end cables which should sound better given their pricing. I’ll Leave those to the more serious Hifi systems with deep pockets. |
it's beyond silly to suggest that all Chinese cables are average. There are plenty of products from other countries around the world that are average at best. However, if one is expecting a sub $100 cable to be great, that is a crap shoot. My personal experience with Odin 2 speaker cables, XLRs and S/PIDFs, they are exceptional value |
Well, seems like my curiosity wasn't quite satisfied after trying the Cardas ic.I ordered an Odin Gold II ic from the Pureffair store on AliExpress. It's been in the system playing all afternoon and I'm very very impressed already. What has changed is there's a pleasant bit of warmth without rolling off the highs or turning the bass to mush.The leading edges are softened just the slightest bit.It's a great match with the other Voodoo (silver) ics which lean towards the cool side and are wonderfully detailed. I'm already getting curious about the speaker cables.How would they fare against Voodoo scs and my current ZenWaves.I don't like that the name Odin is being used.At least they could spell it differently,Oodin or something. Maybe I can engrave made in China on the wood blocks. |
After replacing the ~ $40 PC to my Audio Alchemy PS 5 (optional outboard power supply) yesterday, but still using the Pangea, the sound improved quite a bit BUT... The sound was "over there". Thinking the Pangea just needed some hours to round out its sound I let the music play and play and play. Finally I realized it wasn't getting any closer, so I swapped it out for the fau Nordost Odin 2 S/PIDF. This was a huge leap forward in 3D and warmth, but it needed a couple hours to settle in. This morning spun KD Lang Drag and am blown away. The music is very tube-like now.YIPPEE! The lesson learned is sometimes when swapping cables in/out one can go backwards. In this case swapping out JUST the Tekline PC between PS 5 and Core Power 1800 MkII for the $40 PC was the fly in the ointment that took me far to long to figure out HTH |
Build quality matters in audio performance. If cheap Chinese fakes sounded anywhere near OEM performance levels, why don’t the speaker and the audio equipment presenters just use the cheap fakes instead at the audio expos ? It would be a helluva marketing tool …if they actually worked well of course ,,,(oh … that pesky detail…) |
sound “good” is a highly subjective, and biased relative term . If they stir your drink, carry on, BUT until you actually personally audition the OEM ODINs on a high-end system, then you will witness how much the OEM ODINs totally smoke the fakes . the fakes performance wise can fully live up to their listed $$ pricepoint. ….but they ain’t close to the ODINs or any other NORDOST model line above their very bottom entry level The Comrades hiding from intellectual property counterfeit prosecutions in their Far East repressive proletariat have an active, and dare I say successful; illegal market capitalization on an illusion of quality on the cheap. It’s an online selling of uber-cheap build fakes ergo grossly inferior cheap quality build cables, BUT with an appearance and similarity to OEM models with a purposeful fraudulent counterfeit branding. |
As I often do, I think about my systems weaknesses even when Im not listening to it. Do you? Today's case in point: CHASING DOWN WEAK BASS. Where I was focused on my S/PDIF cables, it occurred to me to check what power cord I had on my Audio Alchemy PS-5 outboard power supply umbilicaled to my AA DDP-1 DAC/PRE. The PC mfg was recommended from a friend and sold on Amazon. Now in fairness to him, he said to get the copper version, but I bought the silver over copper: �Oxygen Free Copper Core】The US power cable is 10AWG Oxygen Free Single Crystal Copper Conductors with low harmonic vibration point and high damping provide optimal transmission. I just swapped it out for a Tekline Audio boutique cable circa ~ 2005 @ ~ $500. Even cold, it has a lot more low end grunt. I'll give it a couple hours then rotate my Pangea Premier SE coax with my NEARdost Odin 2 TBC |
The last word The YouTube video at the bottom is a good summary read . |
