Steever Posted June 25, 2011 Posted June 25, 2011 (edited) Hi everyone. I'm in the process of piecing together a nice little system. It'll be a near field (similar to desktop) active system with a 3" wide band driver doing duties from about 250-300hz and up. Amplification will be quality bipolar class A/B. The source is a 24bit cd player. I'm not going to mention any brands and model numbers because I'm really wanting to keep feedback and responses to my question as 'general' as possible. I've heard the two before but each was in a different system and this makes it difficult for me to choose. I won't be able to compare before installing it and listening. My question is, in your average system, how would the sound of the basic Kimber 4VS speaker cable compare to say that of the Nordost Flatline 2 cables in a general sense? Both basic cables I know. My general impression is that the Kimber has a weightier and neutral sound, whereas the Nordost tends to be lighter sounding with a touch more detail and air up high. Is this in line with your findings? I'm not asking which one is better, just your observations. The system does lean towards a softer sound by nature, and I am wanting to hang onto as much detail and transparency as possible. Cheers all. Edited June 25, 2011 by Winno
nfi42 Posted June 25, 2011 Posted June 25, 2011 I've heard both on the same system, your general impressions are close to mine but also the Norsost is faster. If your system is a little soft, then I'd probably look at the Nordost rather than the Kimber. Why don't you see if you can get some 2nd hand Nordost from David at Caxton Audio higher up the range? they'll be less thin.
Mick35 Posted June 25, 2011 Posted June 25, 2011 Hey Winno, I've only heard the 'Red Dawn' series in the Nordost range, they sounded very nice in the top end connected to a pair of Raal tweeters. I heard the Kimber 4Vs, but not in the same system. So for me I couldn't comment on what cable gave the type of impression you mention. Can you try both on the one speaker?
TheGiantPanda Posted June 25, 2011 Posted June 25, 2011 Have had some interesting results with diy speaker cables
stephennic Posted June 25, 2011 Posted June 25, 2011 Hi, I had the 4vs quite a nice sounding natural cable. I moved the the Kimber 8tc far better. Nordost tend to be brighter,faster leaner and more detail and air up top. I found the kimber had a more natural sounding mids and fuller bass and generally a warmer tonality and a bit richer fuller sounding. It all depends on your system what gels the best- system synergy. On my system I prefer kimber speaker cables but use Nordost,chord and kimber interconnects Cheers Steve.
Steever Posted June 27, 2011 Author Posted June 27, 2011 Thanks guys. Because of the system balance, I'm probably going to go Nordost. This is because although the driver I have in mind measures up to about 18kHz, through experience, 'most' wide band drivers that fulfill mid to high frequency tasks tend to sound a little 'soft'. I want to maintain quite a good extended top end. Midbass and subbass will be handled by dedicated drivers. I already have 4TC and 8TC on my main system and like what they do there.
eKT Posted September 1, 2011 Posted September 1, 2011 Winno, I thought I would let you know that Nordost is bringing out a new Blue Heaven range. With the previous range David at Caxton Audio in Brisbane here was able to make up speaker cables of any size or configuration you want, but now he is not allowed to buy rolls of Nordost cable any more. He still has some cable left, and I just bought a 2 metre pair off him and they have nice staging and transparency, the bass is fine, but then I'm running Naim amplification, which has great drive. Cheers, Blu
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