At Nordost, we try our best to give our customers the knowledge they need to optimize their audio systems and get them performing at their best. One way that we do that is by providing you all with a series of helpful guides ranging from loudspeaker and turntable set-up, to the importance of grounding and vibration control, all available for download on our website. The most recent of these valuable articles deals with digital cables.
Digital audio cables are arguably the most controversial component in hifi. As hifi audio cable manufacturers, when it comes to our digital cables, we are constantly asked two questions: “How do digital cables make a difference in a hifi system if all they do is send ones and zeros?” And, “How does the design of a digital cable help in the signal transfer?”. This informative download breaks down the answers to both of these questions, explains the technical challenges of digital audio data transmission, and lets you know what you should listen for when evaluating the merits of a digital audio cable so that you can upgrade with confidence.
Our product specialists receive questions on a daily basis about Nordost products, their application, and hifi in general. We thought that we would take a minute to share some of our most recent and frequently asked questions here so that everyone can get the answers they are looking for!
Q: Can you use the new QRT Stand Mount with older versions of the QBASE?
A: The QRT Stand Mount was designed to fit the QSOURCE as well as all Mark II versions of the QBASE. Older versions of the QBASE AC Distribution Unit will not fit the QRT Stand Mount.
Q: What purpose do the detachable ground whips that come with Nordost’s Tonearm Cable + serve?
A: All ranges that include a Tonearm Cable +, from Blue Heaven to Odin 2, come with two detachable ground whips. These ground whips can be used to ground the shielding of the cables as an additional ground loop prevention when needed. In order to determine if you need to use the Detachable Ground Wires, follow these steps:
First, play some music without any of the Detachable Ground Wires attached and see how it sounds.
Then, try inserting one of the Detachable Ground Wires to your cable on the end closest to the turntable. Connect the spade of the Detachable Ground Wire to the ground post on your turntable.
Next, if you have a ground option on the phono-stage end, disconnect the Detachable Ground Wire from the turntable end of the tonearm cable, and insert it into the phono-stage end instead. Connect the spade of the Detachable Ground Wire to the phono-stage ground, and listen again.
Finally, if applicable, insert both Detachable Ground Wires to the two ends of your cable, connect them to ground on the turntable and the phono-stage, and listen one last time.
Q: Is the Valhalla 2 Ethernet cable shielded?
A: Yes the V2 Ethernet cable is constructed using individually shielded conductors, arranged in twisted pairs, which are then wrapped in braided, silver-plated copper shielding, before being encased within a high-density polymer insulation. This fully shielded cable construction virtually eliminates the crosstalk and electromagnetic interference (EMI) that has always afflicted previous network cables.
Q: When I’m auditioning Nordost’s QPOINT Resonance Synchronizer, what should I be listening for?
A: When auditioning the QPOINT, listen for the following improvements:
Greater musical organization, focus, and coherence
A controlled sense of dynamic freedom and force to the sound
Nordost’s new QRT Stand Mount is the perfect accessory for our QBASE Mark II AC Distribution Unit and QSOURCE Linear Power Supply, offering several stable new ways to place your QRT products for both sonic improvements as well as convenience! With the QRT Stand Mount, you will be able to easily support your device with Sort Kones (draining it of vibration with greater stability than ever before), mount it to the wall, or simply lift it, providing extra stability. The Stand Mount was designed with your ease in mind, and can be integrated into any system that already uses our QBASE Mark II or QSOURCE.
When “grounding” an audio system, the first thing that audiophiles do is make sure that their AC receptacles are in order. This is a great first step! It is vitally important that the AC line and load wires on all receptacles being used in your hifi system are correctly phased and properly grounded.
However, if you really want to address earth ground, the most practical and worthwhile upgrade is to install a dedicated circuit for your audio system. This step should be followed by installing a separate, external ground path to an external ground rod. Each of these solutions provides a path out for unwanted, “spurious” currents that circulate through the circuit and add noise to the system. Unfortunately, these measures ONLY address earth ground, and don’t do a thing to address signal ground.
Signal ground becomes a problem whenever currents are generated during transmissions between devices in a system as a result of the small differences of potentials in those components. In order to rectify the background noise and loss of low-level details caused by contaminants on the signal ground, you need to elicit the help of an artificial ground. An artificial ground is a sink of impedance lower than the house earth ground, so that high-frequency noise on the signal ground will drain away, leaving a clean reference behind.
Signal ground can be addressed two ways. The first option is to use an extremely low-impedance cable to connect the signal ground access point on the termination to the ground pin of an unused wall socket. However, the second option is far more versatile – a passive grounding box. Nordost’s answers to artificial ground are their QKORE Ground Units, a series of parallel grounding devices which can either separately provide an artificial “clean” earth for the primary side of the power supply (earth ground) with the QKORE1, and the secondary side (signal ground) with the QKORE3, or can address both the signal and earth ground together with the QKORE6!
Nordost is happy that we can continue to make our time spent at home a little more enjoyable with the gift of great music. Our products aim to allow you to enjoy your favorite performances as they were intended to be heard. Like you, we here at Nordost are music lovers. Each one of us has our own style… we listen to a wide variety of artists and genres but, in a way, we appreciate them all. We thought that we would share a few of the songs on our own personal playlists with you each month. Some may be classics, some may be brand new, some may not even be to your tastes, but we hope that there is something here for everyone.
Here are some of the songs that we will have on rotation this May.
You can now listen to our monthly playlist here: TIDAL | SPOTIFY | QOBUZ
Mama Papa—La Force—La Force
Get It Right—Aretha Franklin—Get It Right
Baby Baby Baby—Make the Girl Dance—Baby Baby Baby
Past Lives—BØRNS—Dopamine
It Never Entered My Mind—Miles Davis Quintet—Workin’
Woncha Come On Home—Joan Armatrading—Show Some Emotion
All That Heaven Allows—Mercury Girls—Ariana
The Times They Are A Changing—The Brothers And Sisters—Dylan’s Gospel
Audiophiles who have an appreciation for classic, two-channel systems understand the importance of a high-end tonearm cable. The tonearm cable is the most critical and sensitive cable in any vinyl-sourced system. This is especially true in revealing reference systems. The delicate signals carried from the phono cartridge to the phono stage demand that every aspect of the cable’s design, material, and construction be entirely optimized for its application. The newly released Odin 2 Tonearm Cable + is the perfect solution for such critical demands.
Nordost’s Odin 2 Tonearm Cable + consists of four, silver-plated, solid core 99.999999% OFC conductors, wrapped in a patented Dual Mono-Filament suspension. This innovative and proprietary design element dramatically increases signal speed and reduces insulation contact by 85%. The conductors are then individually shielded using Nordost’s unique Total Signal Control (TSC) technology, allowing for 100% coverage and protection from external pollution (such as RFI and EFI) and crosstalk.
The largest hurdle to overcome in tonearm construction is noise. Providing proper and complete grounding has historically been a challenging feat. Nordost’s O2 Tonearm Cable + easily tackles this problem with a two-prong approach. Firstly, Nordost’s new tonearm cable runs a fully isolated bond ground throughout the cable. When needed, this bond ground connects the chassis of the turntable and phono-stage, creating a secure, low noise connection between the two components. The second method is a versatile solution, ensuring that Nordost’s tonearm cable will be able to address any grounding need, regardless of the unique construction of the components in the sound system. Each Odin 2 Tonearm Cable + will include two, detachable, silver-plated ground whips, complete with Dual Mono-Filament technology and TSC shielding. When needed, these ground whips connect to the shielding of the tonearm cable, totally eliminating any noise that could be introduced during signal transfer.
As with all cables in our Supreme Reference Range, the Odin 2 Tonearm Cable + is measured to precise mechanically tuned lengths, a technique that reduces internal microphony and high-frequency impedance resonances. The O2 Tonearm Cable + is then terminated with Nordost’s proprietary HOLO:PLUG® Straight or 90º low-mass 5-pin Din, RCA, or XLR connectors, which have been specifically designed to accommodate the cable’s unique design.
The Odin 2 Tonearm Cable + is handmade in the USA, offering the highest level of production quality and precision, which is necessary when manufacturing the most crucial signal cable in a sound system. Nordost’s Supreme Reference-level tonearm cable eliminates noise and provides the low levels of capacitance needed to maintain the integrity of such fragile signals, ensuring a truly sublime vinyl listening experience.
SPECIFICATIONS:
Insulation: High purity extruded Fluorinated Ethylene Propylene (FEP)
Conductors: 4 x 23 AWG
Construction: Mechanically tuned lay, length and Dual Mono-Filament, TSC design
Termination: HOLO:PLUG® gold-plated Straight or 90० low-mass 5-pin Din, RCA, or XLR connectors. Whips and bond wire terminated with gold-plated 5mm spades.
After a year of having to suffer without live music, our friends at Newvelle Records have found a solution: Newvelle Live. Newvelle is giving music lovers around the world a front row seat to live, jazz concerts, brought to you from their favorite recording studio, East Side Sound! This is a wonderful opportunity to join in on a unique experience, enjoy world-class performances, and support talented artists.
Continue reading to find out all of the details you need to participate in these fantastic events.
What is Newvelle Live?
Every week in April 2021, Newvelle invites you to experience live concerts at our favorite studio – East Side Sound – where we’ve recorded each of our first five seasons. But for the first time, you’ll have a chance to see Newvelle artists perform, streaming to wherever you are in the world.
With live performances all but eliminated due to the pandemic, Newvelle Live gives you a novel way to support artists and institutions who are preserving the legacy of jazz for a new generation. Anyone can join. All we ask is that you consider making a contribution to support the musicians performing every Friday in April. Contributions will be divided equally among the 12 artists performing throughout the series.
Newvelle, thanks to the generous support of musician and entrepreneur Alex Rigopolous, covers the entire overhead for producing and recording this series. So all of the money that is donated for this streaming series goes straight to the musicians.
This series is designed as a radical experiment: one that explores the relationship between musician and fan, and an attempt to strengthen our communities and support musicians at a critical time.
As society slowly starts to spin forward again, we are given a chance to reassess how we value music.
John Patitucci, Yotam Silberstein and Roggerio Bocato: April 9Tim Berne and Gregg Belisle-Chi: April 16Rufus Reid and Sullivan Fortner: April 23Carmen Staff and Allison Miller: April 30
Nordost is happy that we can continue to make our time spent at home a little more enjoyable with the gift of great music. Our products aim to allow you to enjoy your favorite performances as they were intended to be heard. Like you, we here at Nordost are music lovers. Each one of us has our own style… we listen to a wide variety of artists and genres but, in a way, we appreciate them all. We thought that we would share a few of the songs on our own personal playlists with you each month. Some may be classics, some may be brand new, some may not even be to your tastes, but we hope that there is something here for everyone.
Here are some of the songs that we will have on rotation this April.
You can now listen to our monthly playlist here: TIDAL | SPOTIFY | QOBUZ
FREEDOM—Jon Batiste—WE ARE
Pay Your Way In Pain—St. Vincent—Pay Your Way In Pain
It Might as Well Be Spring—Nina Simone—Portrait
À l’ammoniaque / Mon dieu—La Zarra—À l’ammoniaque / Mon dieu
Days Like This—Van Morrison—Days Like This
Take Me to the Good Times—The Suffers—Take Me to the Good Times
Colors—Black Pumas—Black Pumas
Under Pressure—Karen O, Willie Nelson—Under Pressure
We are very happy to announce that our Norse 2 Bi-Wire Jumpers have joined the ranks of “Hi-Fi Choice Recommended” products! Neville Roberts was very pleased with Nordost’s solution for bi-wireable loudspeakers, both for hifi-lovers with a bi-wire/bi-amp set-up who don’t want to invest in two separate sets of loudspeaker cables, as well as for system-owners who are using bi-wire loudspeakers along with single-output amplifiers. This efficient, practical, and effective solution yields massive sonic improvements by replacing the standard, metal plates and generic wires supplied with most bi-wire loudspeakers.
“The Norse 2 [Bi-Wire Jumper]…matches its task very well, offering all the refinement you would expect from a set of high-end cables and so is a sensible upgrade to the metal links fitted to so many speakers.” — Neville Roberts, Hi-Fi Choice
To decide if you should be using our Norse 2 Bi-Wire Jumpers in your own system, and for tips on how to configure jumpers with your loudspeakers, download our Bi-Wire Jumpers guide, today!
High end, two-channel audio systems have gone through a major transformation over the past decade. Systems that were once driven exclusively by vinyl and CDs are now largely run by content stored on NAS drives and servers. In order to ensure that audiophiles can enjoy the ease of streaming music without having to concede the fidelity that they deserve, it is necessary to employ an Ethernet cable worthy of facilitating that transfer. Nordost’s Valhalla 2 Ethernet Cable allows music lovers to fully incorporate digital music storage and streaming into their reference audio systems, while maintaining, and even improving upon, their musical performance.
In order to meet the increasing demand for high speed data and increased bandwidth, the Valhalla 2 Ethernet Cable has the advantage of eight, 23 AWG, solid core conductors wrapped in a high density polymer insulation. These annealed conductors are arranged into four twisted pairs before being triple-shielded. Each of these design aspects minimizes skin effect, eliminates crosstalk and EMI (electromagnetic interference), and ensures a high performance network cable, offering far more bandwidth than is needed for the typical data demands of today.
To further distinguish the V2 Ethernet Cable from its competitors, Nordost has implemented its unique mechanical tuning process. By meticulously cutting each conductor at calculated and equal lengths, Nordost reduces internal microphony and high frequency resonance. The precise cut of each conductor, at a length which is determined by the cable’s geometry, material, and application, guarantees the uniform arrival of all signals, dramatically reducing timing errors.
To complete this reference design, the Valhalla 2 Cable is terminated with a completely specialized, gold-plated 8P8C/RJ45 connector, designed to resist ESD (electrostatic discharge) and optimized for mechanical reliability. The resulting cable supports frequencies and transmission speeds that easily meet Category 8 requirements.
The Valhalla 2 Ethernet Cable is designed, manufactured, and terminated in the USA. Each cable is constructed with precision, consistency, and quality fabrication, providing a massive improvement over standard issue, mass-produced, low precision Ethernet cables.
SPECIFICATIONS
• 8 X 23 AWG Solid Core Conductors • Twisted Pair Design • Triple-shielded: Screen foil and Dual Braid • Mechanically tuned lengths • High density polymer insulation • Specialized EMI and ESD resistant gold-plated 8P8C/RJ45 connectors • Extremely high bandwidth
