April 2002 Reviewed by Jeff Fritz	Nordost Red Dawn II Speaker Cable / Red Dawn Interconnect / Optix S-Video Cable / Moonglo Digital Cable

Description Model: Red Dawn II speaker cable Price: $1200 USD (2m pair) Model: Red Dawn interconnect Price: $300 USD (1m pair) Model: Optix S-Video cable Price: $250 USD (1m) Model: Moonglo digital coaxial Price: $200 USD (1m) Warranty: Limited lifetime	Features Teflon insulation Solid-core conductors (Red Dawn and Red Dawn II) Silver over OFC copper (99.999999% purity) conductor material Micro-Monofilament Technology (Optix S-Video) Spades or Z-plugs (gold-plated beryllium copper) Silver solder (used for terminations) Extremely durable design

Cables are perhaps the most baffling of all audio components. Audiophiles endlessly argue over the same basic questions: How much do they matter? How much should they cost? What constitutes a good cable? The list seems endless.

The answers to these questions vary from system to system and from listener to listener. Rather than issue some hard-and-fast rules, I'd rather tell you what I think. First and foremost, yes, I find that cables do matter. There’s no question in my mind that cables affect audio and video performance. They may not have the same performance impact as changing components such as speakers, but they can have a serious effect. And as to what makes a good cable: I believe that the quality of its component elements, the quality of its construction, and its design principles, all contribute mightily to the end result. Nordost seems to have these bases covered.

Cables as a fix-all

Until someone makes an intelligent cable (and I’m not talking about the use of "intelligent" as a marketing term), audio and home-theater enthusiasts should not attempt to fix problems with cables. Why? For example, if you tame a bright soundtrack with a dull-sounding cable, then what happens when you play back something with balanced high frequencies? If a cable softens the highs on a bad-sounding piece of software, it’s going to do the same to a good one. That seems obvious.

Nordost

Nordost cables all share similar basic construction techniques and design principles, but each cable type does have its own special configuration geared toward its intended purpose. Take the Red Dawn interconnects and speaker cables, for instance. Each individual conductor within the cable is encapsulated in its own Teflon extrusion. Nordost claims this "eliminates strand interaction, which significantly reduces the well-documented audible distortions caused by skin effect and magnetic-field interactions." Skin effect describes an electrical signal’s tendency to travel on the outside surface of the wire -- there's more resistance at the cable's core. According to Nordost this results in power loss at high frequencies.

If you peer closely at the cables themselves, you get the picture. Within its sheathing, the cable appears to consist of a series of diminutive conductors all spaced just so within the greater whole. The effect: each strand is isolated from its neighbor. This reportedly requires very precise manufacturing, but Nordost insists that this effort is imperative in order to achieve the performance they've specified.

According to Nordost, the precise spacing of each solid-core conductor (solid core is another design theme common in the Nordost line) keeps inductance and capacitance at a minimum. As a result, the company claims the cables are capable of extremely fast transmission of the musical signal. Cables in the Nordost line are ranked (by cost and performance) in relation to their transmission speed. Speed in this case, is calculated as a percentage of the speed of light (roughly 186,000 miles per second) -- the speed, in theory, at which a perfect electrical signal travels through a perfect cable. In reality, an electrical signal traveling through copper suffers some loss of speed, which is an effect that Nordost refers to as Propagation Delay. Nordost quotes the propagation delay of the Red Dawn II speaker cable and Red Dawn interconnect as 94% of the speed of light, with other cables in the line coming in at various percentages (Optix S-Video is rated at 85%, for example).

Nordost claims to use materials of the highest caliber. The conductors are extruded silver over OFC copper (99.999999% purity) and are "varied and balanced" with regard to their size. The insulation is extruded Teflon, which is a material favored by Nordost.

The Moonglo coaxial digital cable uses two multi-filament center conductors, each encapsulated in Teflon. The conductors are then covered with a layer of silver foil that acts as a shield, and that is further covered by another layer of Teflon. Both conductors are then wound around two Teflon-cushioned filaments before a final layer of Teflon is applied.

The Optix S-Video cable uses Nordost’s Micro-Monofilament technology (a proprietary technique that reportedly cuts down on dielectric contact by 80%) and is notable for its low signal loss over long runs. This property is useful for systems that have a source at the front of a room and a projector located in the rear. Rated signal loss is less than -1dB at 1MHz and -1.4dB at 5MHz over a 100’ run!

Finally, the various connectors are all high-quality Nordost designs. The Z Conductor is a gold-plated beryllium-copper Z plug. Nordost prefers this connector to the spade, the long-established standard, for its speaker cables. Nordost calls their RCA connectors Moonglo (just like the digital cable). They feature a retractable locking casing which still allows simple installation without undue insertion friction. From termination to termination, Nordost leaves nothing to chance.

Audio and video

The basic sound of the Nordost cables, taken as a system, is remarkably transparent. Fast, tight, and detailed were the first words that came to mind as I spun Bucky Pizzarelli’s Swing Live DVD-Audio disc [Chesky CHDVD222]. Bernard Purdie’s percussion was snappy and solid, while cymbals had the right amount of shimmer and air, with no tizziness to be heard. The sound seemed to flow without getting hung up at any particular frequency. This left me with little to actually hear, except the live quality of the music of course.

If the sound of a cable lets through the sound of the system’s components, you’ve got a pretty good chance at achieving the performance you desire -- if you choose your system components carefully. I’ve never felt the need to fix any part of the sound I achieve in my room through the use of cables, so it is exactly this synergy that I crave. The Nordost cables let me hear what I know is there, and never masked or veiled the sound. Take Aaron Neville’s Devotion DVD-A disc [Silverline 86028-9]. "Let It Be," sounded so much like music, I just sat back and, well… let it be. Neville’s vocals were delicate or powerful, depending on him -- not the system. If midrange clarity is what you crave, it’s here in spades.

Well-recorded soundtracks such as Hans Zimmer’s Gladiator [DECCA 289 467 094-2] further illustrated the Nordost’s neutral-sounding character. Stringed instruments sounded fully fleshed out, while higher frequencies had bite without any fizzy grain or hash. No truncated highs here. There was excellent delineation of detail, too, which made individual instruments easy to pick out of the sharply focused soundstage. The sound was more lively and interactive than I’ve heard with other cables in this system.

Moving on to some home-theater action, I challenged the Nordost cables with some dynamic movie soundtracks. Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace features some floor-shifting bass in chapter 36, "Wipe Them Out." With the Nordost chain unbroken going from my Technics DVD-A player to the Anthem AVM 20, on to the Anthem PVA 7, and finally to the Von Schweikert or Wilson speakers, the bass remained strong and sustained. Although the cables look thin and lightweight, the sound was anything but.

Other parts of Star Wars proved equally telling. The pod-race scene (chapters 20-22) was immediate, guttural and weighty, with the right amount of revving from the engines in the racers. How could I fault it? I really couldn’t. It was clean and powerful, mirroring the soundtrack itself.

The same characteristics were noted when watching Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. The parachute popping open, keeping Lara and her SUV from crashing to the ground, had the snap and focus needed to make your head turn. The system delivered just the right amount of transient speed coming distinctly through the rear speakers in a strikingly realistic manner.

Compared with the Apature Silver cables I had on hand, the Nordost sound was better delineated, with a quicker, tighter focus. The Apatures bogged down the sound by comparison, and truncated the high frequencies just enough to obscure fine detail -- like the leading edge of that parachute popping open. If you want to hear everything that is there, immediately, Nordost is easily the superior cable.

Of course the video signal was routed through Nordost as well. The Optix S-Video cable connected the Technics DVD player to my Sony WEGA monitor. I don’t use any other source, so I don’t use any video switching -- pure and simple, that's the way I like it.

Watching Shrek for the umpteenth time made me aware of just how many color variations actually appear in this movie. With an older Audio Alchemy digital cable I had been using, colors were not as vivid, and edge definition was a bit less distinct. The Nordost video connection cleaned this up a bit, with improved color saturation, definition, and detail. I don’t have a high-definition monitor yet, but the video resolution did improve noticeably with the Optix in the chain. Score another win for Nordost.

Conclusion

I really like the performance I got with Nordost cables in my home-theater system. Ironically, it is surprisingly tough to write about something that has so little inherent character. Combined, the Nordost Red Dawn II speaker cables, Red Dawn interconnects, Optix S-Video cable, and Moonglo coaxial digital cable, virtually disappeared in my system. That makes it a challenge to find anything to really say about them. There are a few things I can hang my hat on though: they provided clean, fast, full, tight sound, with detailed, vivid video performance.

But then, those are the inherent qualities of my system. That, after all, is the point. If you like what you hear and see in your system, and want to hear and see it even it better, maybe you should try Nordost.

Manufacturer contact information:

Nordost Corporation
420 Franklin Street
Framingham, Massachusetts 01702
Phone: (508) 879-1242
Fax: (508) 879-8197

E-mail: info@nordost.com
Website: www.nordost.com

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