Category Archives: News / Events

Upcoming Dealer Events and Trade Shows (Fall 2018)

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Nordost has a busy Fall ahead of us!  We hope to see you at some of these great events.

AUDIO VIDEO THERAPY NORDOST EVENT

Come and join us for a night of demonstrations, comparisons and great music! Audio Video Therapy, in Nashua, NH, is hosting an event Friday, November 9th, from 5:30-9 PM. All are welcome to enjoy the music, food, and refreshments! We hope to see you there, for this fantastic opportunity to hear top rate products perform at their best.

November 9th

5:30pm – 9:00pm

Audio Video Therapy

216 Daniel Webster Hwy

Nashua, NH

(603) 888-9777

john@audiovideotherapy.net

www.avtherapy.net

NORDOST AT THE HI-FI SHOW – LIVE

Nordost is excited to be a part of the Hi-Fi Show – Live, held by Hi-Fi News at the De Vere Beaumont Estate in Windsor, UK on November 10-11th. Visit us in the Morley Suite, where Nordost will be exhibiting alongside Esoteric, in a system using Kef Reference 5 speakers. Throughout the show, Nordost will be demonstrating the effects of our V2 cables, QKORE grounding system, Sort Kones, and ethernet cables. We look forward to seeing you there!

Hi-Fi Show – Live

November 10-11

De Vere Beaumont Estate

The Morley Suite

www.hifinews.co.uk

AUDIO VISION SF — BIG FREE EVENT!

If you are a hifi-lover in the San Francisco area, make sure to clear your calendar on Thursday, November 15th from 7:30-10 PM for a “BIG FREE EVENT!”. Audio Visions SF is hosting a free and fun evening filled with wine, beer, cheese, and hifi. Don’t miss this chance to win some wonderful prizes. This event will be featuring Chord digital and analogue electronics, SME turntables, Raidho loudspeakers, and, of course, Nordost cables and power/grounding systems. To attend this amazing event, please rsvp to info@audiovisionsf.com.

November 15th

“BIG FREE EVENT!”

7:30pm – 10:00pm

Audio Vision SF

1628 California St.

Sn Francisco, CA

RSVP info@audiovisionsf.com

www.audiovisionsf.com

NORDOST AT THE WARSAW AUDIO VIDEO SHOW

Join Nordost at the Audio Video Show, November 16-18th at the Polish National Football Stadium in Warsaw. This will be Nordost’s first event with our new partners in Poland, Audio Center, and we couldn’t be more excited to put on a fantastic show together! Come and see us in room 214 to see a first-rate system, featuring Moon, Audio Vector, and, of course, Nordost cables. Throughout the show we will be showcasing our Heimdall 2 cables, and demonstrating our QKORE grounding system, Sort Kones, power cords, and ethernet cables.

Warsaw Audio Video Show

November 16-18

Polish National Football Stadium

Room 214

www.audioshow.pl

JS AUDIO NORDOST EVENT

JS Audio is putting on another fabulous event at their showroom in Bethesda, MD. Come and join us on Saturday, December 1st to enjoy a world-class system, featuring Wilson Audio, dCS, and Nordost. You don’t want to miss out on this opportunity to learn what our transformative products have to offer your home audio system. A Nordost representative and product specialist will be on hand, performing demonstrations and answering questions.

December 1st

JS Audio

4919 St. Elmo Avenue

Bethesda, MD

(301) 656-7020

js@jsaudio.com

www.jsaudio.com

NORDOST AT CES

Nordost is happy to be attending CES in Las Vegas January 8-11th. Nordost is teaming up with VTL this year on floor 20, room 201 at the Venetian, to put on a show-stopping system. Take advantage of this great opportunity to hear, firsthand, what our transformative products have to offer your home audio system. We hope to see you there!

CES

January 8-11

The Venetian

Room 29-210

www.ces.tech

 

Nordost is headed to the New York Audio Show

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Nordost is thrilled to be exhibiting at the New York Audio Show with our friends and partners, Magico and AVM. The New York Audio Show will be held at the Park Lane Hotel, November 9th – 11th. Be sure to visit us in suite 701 to hear a world class sound system featuring Nordost’s extensive range of products. We hope that everyone in the area will be able to visit us to hear, firsthand, what our transformative products have to offer your home audio system.

New York Audio Show
November 9th–11th
Park Lane Hotel
New York, NY
www.chestergroup.org/newyorkaudioshow/2018

Toronto Audiofest Recap

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The first ever Toronto Audiofest was the perfect kick-off of what is sure to be a institution in the Canadian audio community. It was great to see so many new faces coming out to enjoy music together on some outstanding systems. Thank you to our amazing Canadian retailers who represented Nordost and our products so well, producing some stellar sound. We were especially pleased to be working with our Toronto-based dealer, Executive Stereo, who supplied us with stand-out gear for the event.

Nordost’s room highlighted our QKORE Ground Units and Valhalla 2 Cables:

Atoll Distribution used our Blue Heaven Cables in both of their systems:

Audio Excellence ran their reference system with our Valhalla 2 cables, and a second system with our Norse 2 and Leif cables:    

Audio Eden used Odin 2 and Valhalla 2 cables:

Dennis Davis Reviews Nordost Sponsored Jazz Quintet at RMAF

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By Dennis Davis, The Audio Beat

Let’s face it—most people who attend hi-fi shows don’t make the trek there to attend live concerts.  Musical performances at shows are usually limited to solo performers who have recorded on niche audiophile labels where the biggest selling point is often the label and its recording process.  Performers who have contracts with Universal, Sony, Blue Note or ECM are not in the habit of performing for a bunch of tired audiophiles, who pay nothing at the door and show up for the concert if they feel like it.

In that context, when I learned that Nordost was presenting a concert of jazz musicians from the Newvelle record label, I was excited.  When I saw the list of performers, my jaw dropped.  On trumpet was Dave Douglas.  I’ve attended many Dave Douglas concerts over the last twenty plus years, dating back to his days with John Zorn, and own many CDs he’s recorded as a leader.  Elan Mehler, co-founder of Newvelle Records, played piano at this session and his style has become familiar to me over the label’s three seasons of uniformly great releases.  I knew little of New York based acoustic bass player Simón Willson, except for his contribution to Newvelle’s Piano Noir LP.  However, I got together with the band the evening before the concert, and couldn’t take my eyes off Simón, whose energy was infectious.  John Gunther, composer and multi-instrumentalist (saxophones, clarinet and flute) has recorded extensively as part of New York’s “downtown” jazz scene.  As associate professor at University of Colorado Boulder, and director of their jazz studies program, he was the group’s local performer for the concert, and had warmed up the ensemble the day before at a campus workshop. Singer Dominique Eade recorded twice with Ran Blake, and I loved her well-received 2017 CD, Town and Country.  In addition to a long career as an instructor at New England Conservatory, she has an extensive catalog of recordings.

For those new to this record label, Newvelle issues a new record every other month, sold as a yearly subscription.  Each LP is a work of art—the clear vinyl LP is packaged in a beautiful foldout cover, embellished with commissioned artwork and prose, and is supported by extensive information on the label’s website (www.newvelle-records.com). I’ve heard every record released over the last three years and Newvelle’s consistency of high quality is unequaled in today’s music industry.  Watch out Blue Note and ECM!

The concert was held at the Denver Tech Center Hilton Garden Inn, in a large high ceiling room where I had attended other events.  I recalled fairly poor sound at those non-musical events that had involved a PA system.  Fortunately, Nordost arranged for a professional sound engineer to set up the room and sound system.  He brought in a very high quality sound system and mixing board and the results were spectacular, turning a pig’s ear room into a very good sounding hall.  The stage itself was a little small for the group, and had an effect on my ability to capture good pictures, but the players adjusted well to the somewhat cramped space.

Nordost has installed its professional cabling at the New York recording studio where Newvelle Records records all its sessions, Eastside Sound.  Beginning with Newvelle’s fourth season, all recordings will be made through Nordost cables.  I’ve reviewed the first three seasons for various publications, and look forward to comparing the sound of the new studio recordings. In the meantime, Newvelle’s artists are getting the additional exposure from the Nordost involvement.

The concert featured never before heard compositions from Dave Douglas, as well as material from Newvelle’s LP “Piano Noir”, and material from its third season.  In Elan Mehler’s words, the band, “is dancing between some basic intersections of style and genre—jazz and folk music, poetry and improvisation, prose and composition.”  They opened with a composition from American folk music singer/songwriter Jean Ritchie, an Appalachian song “West Virginia Mine Disaster” recorded by Dominique Eade on her most recent CD Town And Country (Sunnyside).  Next up was “Bear It To Heart” from the “Piano Noir” LP, that featured Elan Mehler and Simón Willson from this group.  The group then launched into a Douglas composition taken from a Jack Kerouac haiku, “Arms folded to the Moon”. I confess that until the middle of the concert I hadn’t recognized vocalist Dominique Eade, but by this third song of the concert, it hit me.  Her resemblance to vocalist Jeanne Lee on The Newest Sound Around (RCA LPM-2500 with pianist Ran Blake) was immediately obvious. I slapped my head over my short memory.  I own two of her CDs and am a big fan. That third song mesmerized me.  The composition, Eade’s singing, and the bands’ excellent ensemble playing had me laying down my pad and pen for the rest of the concert.  True, my hands were engaged in taking photographs, but I was captivated.

This was a performance far above those typically found hi-fi shows.  I searched my memory for comparisons and the only hi-fi show concert I could recall was at a show in New York well over a decade ago, featuring saxophone great Joe Lovano. But merely comparing it to hi-fi show concerts is selling it short.  I attend concerts (most frequently in the San Francisco Bay area) on a regular basis and jazz concerts at least a few times monthly.  This concert was among my favorites of this year, and one I will not soon forget. It sent me home to listen to my Newvelle Records LPs and Dave Douglas and Dominique Eade CDs.  What more can you ask for from a great concert?

Rocky Mountain Audio Fest 2018 Recap

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Rocky Mountain Audio Fest was a resounding success. There was a lot going on with Nordost at RMAF this year, so hopefully you were able to enjoy all of it. Nordost installed a world-class system in the Humboldt Peak room, including gear from dCS, CH-Precision, and VPI, loudspeakers from YG Acoustics, and of course a full loom of Nordost’s Supreme Reference, Odin 2 Cables.

Humboldt Peak was also the site of our turntable master-classes— a real treat for RMAF attendees— hosted by editor of The Audio Beat, Roy Gregory.

Over at CANJAM, Nordost joined forces with Woo Audio to give show-goers the opportunity to perform headphone cable demonstrations for themselves!

Finally, Nordost arranged a special concert for Rocky Mountain Audio Fest— a debut performance of a jazz quintet, featuring acclaimed trumpeter, Dave Douglas. Nordost was elated to provide the cabling for, and sponsor, two amazing performances where attendees and industry friends could enjoy never-before heard compositions by Dave Douglas, as well as songs available in Newvelle Records’ LP “Piano Noir”.

Nordost truly had something for everyone this RMAF. If you missed it, here are some photos from these events and more!

The world-class system in Nordost’s room:

The YG Acoustics Sonja 2.2 speakers in the Nordost room were bi-amped with Odin 2 Speaker Cable!

The VPI Avenger (with Odin 2 cabling):

A lot of good looking cables at work!

The Audio Beat’s Roy Gregory preparing for a master-class:

Odin 2 won the Rocky Mountain International HiFi Press Award for best Signal Cable!

Dave Douglas and his quintet put on an incredible show!

The Nordost and Woo Audio table at CANJAM:

We demonstrated our new Frey 2 USB C Cable with Woo Audio’s prototype, solid-state headphone amplifier/DAC— the WA11 Passport!

Two identical rigs were set up to compare our Blue Heaven and Heimdall 2 cables:

More than just USB and headphone cables go into creating a top flight headphone rig!

In Raidho’s room, our Valhalla 2 cables were used to wire the system:

Gershman Acoustics’ room also used Valhalla 2 cables, along with some of our other offerings:

Nola’s system was equipped with Odin!

 

 

Nordost is headed to the Toronto Audiofest

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Come and see Nordost at the Toronto Audiofest! Please join us, October 19th – 21st, at The Westin Toronto Airport Hotel. Throughout the show, our sales representatives and product specialists, Bruno de Lorimier and Michael Taylor, will be performing live demonstrations and product comparisons, in the Windsor room. The Toronto Audiofest is a perfect opportunity to hear the effect that quality cables can have on a hifi system, and to determine how the caliber of performance is improved as enhancements are made to cable design. While there, come and visit us at our sales booth, where you can take advantage of our special show prices on select products! Admission is free to the public, so we hope to see you there!

Toronto Audiofest

October 19th – 21st

The Westin Toronto Airport Hotel

Toronto, Canada

www.torontoaudiofest.org

 

Roy Gregory Leads Turntable Seminars at RMAF

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Nordost is excited to announce that we will be hosting Roy Gregory, editor of The Audio Beat, for some turntable-centric seminars at RMAF this year. In his seminars, Roy will be demonstrating just how big an impact turntable set up has on the final musical results of record replay — and just how much more there really is in those grooves. Covering everything from tonearm cables to mono cartridges and variations in replay EQ, this is one presentation you really don’t want to miss. Join us in the Humboldt Peak room on Friday at 3 pm, Saturday at noon and 3 pm, and Sunday at noon for this analog master-class!

Humboldt Peak Room

Fri October 5th— 3 pm

Sat October 6th— noon

Sat October 6th— 3 pm

Sun October 7th— noon

 

Nordost at the Festival of Sound Show

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Join Nordost at the Festival Of Sound Show, September 28-30th at the Novotel in Hammersmith, London. Nordost will be supporting our wonderful new distributor, Renaissance, in room D11 Medoc. Throughout the weekend, attendees of the Festival Of Sound Show will have the opportunity to see and hear Nordost’s truly unique cable comparisons and product demonstrations, presented live by Nordost sales representatives on a world-class system, featuring Moon Electronics, a VPI turntable, Dynaudio Loudspeakers, and of course, a full loom of Nordost cables and QRT power products. We hope to see you there!

Festival of Sound Show

Fri 28th Sept 10am – 6pm
Sat 29th Sept 10am – 6pm

Sun 30th Sept 10am – 5pm

Hotel Novotel London West

D11 Medoc

Hammersmith, London UK

 

Nordost is bringing a live jazz performance to RMAF!

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This year at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, Nordost is excited to bring you a live music experience that you won’t want to miss! For two shows only, Nordost is sponsoring the debut of a new ensemble, featuring music from Elan Mehler’s Newvelle release, “Piano Noir”, and presenting some never-before heard works from Dave Douglas. Enjoy as the band dances between intersections of style and genre, making for a unique mix of jazz and folk music, poetry and improvisation, prose and composition.

The concert will be held across the street from the show at the Hilton Garden Inn.  Head over for either the 2pm or 6:30pm show on October 6 for this special musical performance!

Here’s a little information about the incredible artists that make up the new ensemble:

Dave Douglas

Dave Douglas is a prolific trumpeter, composer, educator and entrepreneur from New York City, known for the stylistic breadth of his work and for keeping a diverse set of ensembles and projects active simultaneously. While his career spans more than 50 recordings as a leader, his active projects include his quintet, Sound Prints, Riverside, Present Joys, and High Risk. His unique contributions to improvised music have garnered distinguished recognition, including a Doris Duke Artist Award and two GRAMMY® nominations.

As a composer, Douglas has received commissions from a variety of organizations including the Trisha Brown Dance Company, Essen Philharmonie, The Library of Congress, Stanford University, and Monash Art Ensemble. He is currently on faculty at the Mannes School of Music and is a Guest Coach for the Juilliard Jazz Composer’s Ensemble. Douglas is also a co-founder and president of the Festival of New Trumpet Music and Artistic Director of the Bergamo Jazz Festival. In 2005, Douglas founded Greenleaf Music, an umbrella company for his recordings, sheet music, podcast, as well as the music of other artists in the modern jazz idiom.

Dominique Eade

Dominique Eade is a vocalist, improviser, and composer whose wide-ranging work with artists from Anthony Braxton and Ran Blake to Stanley Cowell and Dave Holland over the past three decades has earned critical recognition from Down Beat, The New York Times, Jazz Times, Entertainment Weekly, The Atlantic Monthly and many other publications here and abroad. She has recorded seven CDs under her own name, including two for RCA Victor. A frequent nominee and two-time winner of the Boston Music Awards, she was nominated for best new artist by the First Annual Jazz Awards (New York) in 1998 and was voted one of the top ten for Best Jazz Singer and was in the ‘Rising Star’ category in multiple Downbeat critic’s polls. Eade’s most recent recording, “Town and Country (Sunnyside)”, was named one of the top ten recordings of 2017 by critics in the Jazz Journalists Association, The Boston Globe, NPR Jazz Critic’s Poll, and many others. Her performance with Ran Blake at the Park Avenue Armory was named one of the ten best performances of 2017 by the New York Times. In 2007, she received the Outstanding Alumni Award from NEC where she has been on the faculty since 1984. Her students include Grammy winners Luciana Souza and Sara Jarosz, Roberta Gambarini, Rachel Price (Lake Street Dive), Sara Serpa, Michael Mayo, Jo Lawry (Sting), Akenya Seymour (Chance the Rapper, Noname), Sofia Rei, Aoife O’Donovan (I’m With Her, YoYo Ma), Richard Saunders (Third Story), and many others.

John Gunther

John Gunther is a composer and multi-instrumentalist who plays the Saxophone, Clarinet, and Flute. With a restless musical spirit, he enjoys exploring all forms of jazz, from traditional to avant-garde, as well as classical music, world music, and experimental electronic music. He has performed or recorded with many notable jazz artists including Dave Douglas, Ron Miles, Christian McBride, Bobby Watson, Wallace Roney, Larry Goldings, Tom Harrel, Dewey Redman, Joe Williams, The Woody Herman Orchestra, the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, and The Maria Schneider Orchestra.

As part of New York city’s “downtown” music scene for many years, he produced five recordings for Creative Improvised Music Projects (CIMP) and is co-founder of the contemporary jazz ensembles, “Spooky Actions” and “Convergence.” John is an Associate Professor in Jazz Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he directs the Thompson Jazz Studies Program. He received his Ph.D. from New York University, where his research examined incorporating techniques of serial music with improvisation.  In 2007, he received an “Innovative Seed Grant” to create the Boulder Laptop Orchestra and to further explore the intersection of music, performance, art, and technology.   His work with BLOrk has led to further collaboration with the STEM program at CU, exploring informal science education through the arts.  His most recent recording, “Safari Trio” with Brad Shepik and John Hadfield, can be found on the Dazzle Jazz Record Label.

Elan Mehler

Elan Mehler was born in Boston, studied jazz and classical music at New York University, and resided in NYC, playing music with various ensembles for ten years, before moving to Paris in 2010. Elan has released 6 albums as a leader on Gilles Peterson’s Brownswood label and Challenge Records, including his solo piano debut, “Early Sunday Morning”, in 2014. Elan has toured his bands in major festivals and venues worldwide, receiving generous accolades from The Guardian, Downbeat, Jazzwise, Jazztimes, and many other publications.

In 2015, Elan started Newvelle Records with partner Jean-Christophe Morisseau. Newvelle Records is a vinyl-only, high end label featuring leading lights from the NYC Jazz scene.

Elan’s newest record, featuring Bill Frisell on guitar, “TJ and the Revenge”, is due out in September on Little Lost Records.

Simón Willson

Simón Willson is a Chilean born, Brooklyn based bassist and composer. After graduating from high school, Willson decided to pursue his musical studies in the United States. He graduated from the prestigious New England Conservatory in Boston. As an eclectic and in demand sideman, he has toured with a host of different artists in Europe, the US, and South America. He has worked with a number of relevant jazz figures, such as Ethan Iverson, Michael Blake, Ben Monder, Steve Cardenas, Jim Black, Jason Palmer, George Garzone, and Frank Carlberg, among many others. In addition to his sideman work, he co-leads the bands Great on Paper and Earprint. The latter won the “Best Debut Album” category of the NPR Music Jazz Critics Poll in 2016.

 

Hilton Garden Inn
October 6
2:00pm – 3:00pm
and
6:30pm – 7:30pm

 

Nordost is headed to Rocky Mountain Audio Fest!

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Nordost has several exciting announcements for the upcoming Rocky Mountain Audio Festival! This year, RMAF will be held October 4-7 at the Denver Marriott Tech Center in Colorado. Nordost will be using the Humboldt Peak Room, as always, to showcase a stellar system, featuring components from CH Precision, DCS, and VPI, as well as YG Acoustic loudspeakers. The whole system will be wired using Nordost’s Supreme Reference range of Odin 2 cables, making it a world class set-up. Throughout the show, Nordost product trainer and sales manager, Mike Marko, will be holding live product demonstrations and cable comparisons, which will highlight our USB cables and QKORE Grounding Units. Nordost will also be hosting Roy Gregory, editor of The Audio Beat, for some turntable-centric seminars (Fri: 3 pm, Sat: noon, Sat: 3 pm, and Sun: noon). In his seminars, Roy will be touching on the importance of tonearm wiring (both internal and external), the use of mono cartridges to play mono discs, and the value of correct replay EQ, as well as looking at cartridge alignment and analog set up. You do not want to miss this invaluable workshop!

In addition to our Humboldt Peak location, Nordost will also be exhibiting at CANJAM with our friends and partners, Woo Audio, allowing show-goers the chance to experience the difference Nordost’s personal hifi cables make.  You can even demo our USB and headphone cables for yourself. Once you have heard the difference with your own ears, a select range of Nordost products will be available for purchase with exclusive show specials, both at CANJAM, as well as at our sales booth in the lobby.

Finally, Nordost is thrilled to announce that we will be sponsoring a truly unique opportunity to enjoy jazz music at its finest. Join us for an exclusive concert, one night only at the Rocky Mountain Audio Festival. Elan Mehler, from Newvelle Records, and his debut group, will be featuring music from the newly released “Piano Noir”, as well as never-before-heard works from prolific trumpeter, Dave Douglas. Elan and his group will be performing two shows only at the Hilton Garden Inn, across from the Denver Marriott Tech Center, on Saturday October 6, at 2 pm and 6:30 pm.

We can’t wait to see you all next month in Denver, for what is sure to be a fabulous show!