Nordost Valhalla appreciation thread - Page 8  

Originally Posted by Patrick82

The soldering I did with Cary was the best I ever did, I can't do better. With my amp it took half a day just to figure out how to solder all wires into the tiny pins without them touching each other, I had to melt down the plastic and bend the pins into opposite directions, others would have done the same.

Originally Posted by Patrick82

Originally Posted by Patrick82

Yes, only good things happen from Valhalla. It made me lose fat as well, if they sold Valhalla for 10 bucks then there would be fat people all over the place, imagine elevators falling down from too much weight. Valhalla is a life saver!

Originally Posted by Patrick82

I compared a few cables and it seems that deeper silver plating makes the sound more colored. Valhalla is the only one with 78 microns silver plating, the rest have 60 microns. All have Micro Mono-Filaments.
I made my own interconnects from Valkyrja speaker cable, I also cut a Vishnu power cord into 50cm lengths and used that as interconnects, it works great!

22awg Valkyrja speaker cable + Eichmann Bullets + 2 layers ERS Paper
16awg Vishnu power cord + Neutrik XLR + hardwired
22awg Valhalla interconnect + Neutrik XLR + hardwired



Valkyrja sounds very smooth, flat and neutral, nothing sticks out, everything sounds the same, it doesn't sound like real life. There is no sibilance at all. It felt like listening to background music instead of being inside the music. Neutral sound is very boring, I just wanted to turn the music off.

Vishnu sounded very heavy and smoother than Valkyrja, I liked it better at first but it quickly became fatiguing from the heavy bass. Vocals sounded more realistic but low-level detail was lacking badly. Many will love this sound.

Valhalla sounds fake and messed up, it's edgy and bright which gives fake transparency, blackness and dynamics. Everything is more distinct, nothing blends together. It sounds more exciting because everything is emphasized. It's very colored, but I still wanted to keep listening.



I was surprised that shielding of the cable didn't matter in quick testing, I connected shielding of the Valhalla interconnect and didn't hear an improvement , it must be a very small difference. It is weird that skeptics only worry about proper shielding and don't care about what is really important.
Using the Valkyrja speaker cable nude sounded very smooth, there was no sibilance at all. I'm not sure I heard a difference when adding ERS Paper shielding.

Soon I will slice open one of my Valhalla power cords and use that as interconnects for movies. 16awg with 78 microns silver plating should make it the most colored of them all. I'm guessing it's better than the Valhalla interconnect since it has Dual Micro Mono-Filaments instead of single. The Valhalla interconnect and speaker cables are old technology, only the power cords and digital cables are good enough.

Does anyone know if it works to use a couple Valhalla digital AES/EBU cables as XLR interconnects? On their website it says the two conductors are bonded together, are they in separate tubes?

Originally Posted by Patrick82

Valkyrja has sparkle when comparing it against crappy cables . Since I took the time to even listen to it shows how good it is. I was hoping it would be better than Valhalla but it was too neutral for me. I need deeper silver plating!

100 microns silver plating + 22awg + Dual Micro Mono-Filaments would be nice, they could name it "Valhalla Extreme". Only use 1 conductor per signal and remove the rest (too much muddiness), sell it cheap and more people will buy it since Valhalla is made to compensate for crappy systems! Put my bum face on the box to show that poor people can afford these cables too... Write the truth on the website and say this cable isn't neutral but it makes every system sound neutral because the cable is heavily colored, truth always wins in the end, it could convince some skeptics too. Nordost will lose on a few dozen people from the high-end market but will gain far more from millions of people from the low-end. Start producing more cables and sell Valhalla for $100, everybody wins!

I see the future, whole cities wired with Valhalla cable... If I would build a perfect city myself, I would choose Valhalla cable, it's that good!

Originally Posted by Patrick82

I found this picture on my harddrive, the pins are smaller than I remembered.

Originally Posted by Patrick82

The small pins is the analog connection between pre-amp and amp. The stock wiring was 24awg and I replaced it with 22awg.

The big pins are for DC wiring from ICEpower module to the Gain Cell board. The difference was huge when I tried different amount of conductors, with 3 conductors there was too much bass, with 1 conductor bass was gone and highs were emphasized. 2 conductors was perfect. The stock wiring was 18awg and I replaced it with 2x22awg.

Originally Posted by Patrick82

Since I got my vibration isolation rack my system has sounded too heavy, that's why I made my Valhallas thinner.

A thicker cable compensates for a thin sounding system.