Nordost Solar Wind - Review/Demo

dorokusai

Please refer to this thread before posting:

http://clubpolk.polkaudio.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=14424

Demo # 3 :

Nordost Solar Wind - 1M

Specifications

Solar Wind Interconnect

Insulation: Extruded Teflon®
Conductors: x12 round micro litz
Material: 40 microns silver plated 99.99999%
OFC Capacitance: 7.6pF / ft
Inductance: 0.16uH / ft
Propagation Delay: 92% speed of light

gidrah

Put me in coach.

dorokusai

I have added the two of you, the roster will be in the sticky thread. Thanks for signing up.

I-SIG

Throw me in to. I'd like to see how something sounds compared to my AQ Copperheads. PM headed out...

Wes

F1nut

I've finished up my demo time with the Nordost Solar Wind cables, a big thank you to Mark for puting this together and Paul from Granite Audio for suppling the cables.

I'll ship these out to Al as soon as I get the address from Mark.

Now for the review......................

Equipment list:
Musical Fidelity Tri-Vista 300 Integrated Amp 475 wpc @ 6 ohms
Musical Fidelity Tri-Vista SACD Player
Polk Audio SDA SRS 2.3TL Speakers with Cardas Gold Binding Posts and MIT Magnum Jumpers
MIT MH-750 Shotgun Bi-Wire Speaker Cables
MIT S1 Shotgun Interconnect Cables

I picked three selections that I am very familiar with and are excellent recordings.

Amiee Mann - Lost In Space MFSL SACD
The Eagles - Hotel California DCC Gold CD
Elvin Bishop - Juke Joint Jump Redbook CD

The Nordost were brand new and needed burn in time, but I wanted to do a before and after review in addition to the Nordost vs MIT review.

Nordost (brand new) vs MIT, from my notes on 2/9/04:
Smaller soundstage, voices not as full, weak bass...lacks extension, lack of air, a bit thin and bright on top, some sibilance has returned, dynamics/impact lacking, overall seems shallow and lacks detail.

I then let the Nordost burn-in for 72 hours straight with another 10 hours here and there. I put my notes away, so I wouldn't be influenced by them. I also managed to break off a small piece of the turbine on one end of the positive cable as I was disconnecting it from a piece of gear that I was using for the burn in process. I really don't know what happened, but I apologize to the forum, Mark and Paul. I will make it right by whatever means necessary.

Nordost (after burn in) vs MIT, from my notes on 2/19/04:
Thin, soundstage seems a little wider than before, bright highs..some sibilance, decent bass..tight, but lacks full extension, lacks detail, lacks air, no depth.....shallow.

Conclusion:
The Nordost are $100.00 retail, the MIT's are $800.00 retail. In this case you get what you pay for. I don't think the Nordost are bad cables and I know they are far better than the crap they give you with some gear. However, they are not even close to the MIT's. My notes from 2/9/04 on the MIT's say, wide soundstage, natural voices, great bass, AIR, impact!!!, detail, smooooooth highs and deep/full sound. After comparing my notes from before and after I was a bit surprised at how little the Nordost changed. Just a little better soundstage and a little better bass, the rest stayed the same. I went into this with a open mind and tried to be as objective as possible. I didn't have a chance to do a blind test, but I have absolutely no doubt that I'd have no problem telling these two from each other and that my demo findings are accurate.

Jesse

danger boy

I just wrapped up my demo, and I wanted to write this while it is still fresh in my short term memory. The longer I wait.. the worse my memory becomes..

I like my coffee with two sugars. thanks
Oops. see, what i mean? waaaaaaaa!

Unlike my last review of the SC2's. This time I decided to demo the Nordost Solar Winds on two different systems.

The first one being my HT/2 ch/everything rig downstairs. I don't own any high end gear here or high end cables either. i've put together what i liked over the past couple years.

Anyways. Once again I used the Nordost between a CAL tube DAC and my Marantz receiver.. that is pulling duty as a preamp.

I demoed it here... because this is where i do most of my music listening. So i'm familiar with it.. and would notice any subtle differences right away.

I didn't notice much difference. This could be both good or bad. Bad in that.. the Solar Winds are in theory better cables than my IXOS 1001 silver series cables ($150 2 meter pair).. which are so heavy.. you could lift an elephant with them.

I did notice some sibilance right away in some of the recordings. Mids were nice and open is a good way to put it. Bass was a little shy in my opinion.

After i did my demo downstairs i decided to take my trusty DAC and move to my simple vintage upstairs two channel only rig. I just put this together. It's a late 70's integraded Yamaha amp, the tube DAC, Toshiba 3109 DVD/CD player with HDCD, and 20+ yr old Monitor 7's in near mint condition.

Maybe because of it's simplicity or the Monitor 7's being close to my ears or the sheer small size of my room. But there is where i noticed a good sound coming from the Nordost cables.

Yes i still heard some brightness and sibilance. But i also noticed a very nice definition of the instruments in the high and mid range. A nice clairty that i'm not used to. To me the cable seemed to be neutral for the most part in the mids. It sounded like I always imagined a good two channel rig should sound. Nice highs, smooth from top to bottom mids and decent but slightly reserved bass.

Needless to say. I as mildly impressed with the Solar Winds in my vintage two channel rig. Whereby i wasn't so in the downstairs one. Maybe it's the tweets in the Monitor 7b's, that are more forgiving than the tweets biwired in the RT800i's i use downstairs.

Finally. The Nordost Solar Winds are an unusual looking cable. It's nearly transparent to look at. I was impressed that sound like that would come out of a cable looking like it does. Frankly, I don't see any wires there at all. It all looks like "plastic mini tubes".

Would I buy or use them myself? Hard to say. With the right gear, I would probably use a pair. Would I switch over all my IC's? nope.

As for value. I usually set a personal limit (because of funds usually) of the most i'll spend on 1 pair of IC's @ $100. I know some folks won't even consider IC's that low. I've found that if you shop around you can find good IC's for that price. Yes my $100 per meter pair limit will never get me into any Kimber Heros or MIT's. But I could never afford a $300 to $800 price tag for one pair of IC's. My hats off to those folks who can afford those.

That's for reading this long post.

Al

dorokusai

Thanks for the review DB, I hope you had fun

AsSiMiLaTeD

those cables are off the chart on the cool factor!

mantis

danger boy,
nicely done.I cable needs to make a sonic Improvement in order to yield value.If you install a pair of wires be it speaker,Interconnects etc,if it doesn't sound better or in alot of cases worse then what your currenty running then theres no need.
Not all higher priced cables sound good or even better then cheaper cables.I have found alot of high priced cables that plainly suck.Sad that they want so much god damn money for them yet yild little to worse gain.

Very few companies that I have listened to actually Impressed me.
Dan

gidrah

Well, I finished up my turn with these cables a few days ago. Like all professional reviewers I was trying to come up with a way to only state the positives and ignore (or atleast gloss over) the negatives. I give up.

Equipment used:
Rig #1
MacIntosh MA-6100 integrated amp
AMC CD8b CD player
Polk Audio Monitor 10B speakers
JBL C54 Trimline speakers
RS 40-1197 full-range drivers in TL cabinet speakers

Rig#2
JVC 9010VBK receiver
NEC 601 CDROM/AA DITB with some sort of Monster digital coax
Altec Lansing-Voice of the Theater components in vented speaker cabs


Upon opening the package I was fairly impressed with the build quality. I think they look much more flimsy than they really are. The plugs were very tight. Too tight for my tastes. The one plug with the busted tooth fit the best. This cable could easily be folded back on itself and tucked under a component if need be. Just don't crease it.

On both systems I was kinda disappointed by the sound. I was expecting much more. I didn't think they did anything wrong, but they also didn't do anything exceptionally well either. The bass and treble were both limited at the extremes. One thing they did well was to give separation to the instruments in a full orchestra. They also seemed to open up the dynamics when compared to lesser cables.

In summary.
Would I buy them new? No
Would I mind having a pair? No
Would I discourage somebody else? No

Thanks again for everybody; especially Doro, for making this possible. Now I not only know, but I know that I know.

F1nut

Originally posted by gidrah
The one plug with the busted tooth fit the best.

See y'all, I did ya a favor.

shack

Nordost Solar Wind - 1M

Initial build impression – First of all…when I hold my cable in the palm of my hand it should be thick and round…any thing else just doesn’t feel right…but that’s just me. The Solar Wind is certainly different. Gidrah mentioned in his email to me that the box states that there are 12 wires. I (like Gidrah) could only count 11. This is no biggie...but where is the other wire? I think it is sturdy enough and well built, but the “cool factor” isn’t that high with me. Of course with “audio” cables it’s the sound that matters…not size…right?

My demo system was a Denon DRA-685 Stereo Receiver @ 100wpc, a Cambridge Audio D500SE CDP and Polk RT25i bookshelf speakers. No subwoofer. I used 12 ga. Megacable speaker wire from Radio Shack.

Demo material was Steely Dan's latest CD Everything Must Go. It is a nice CD that is very well recorded with good variety of music. I added a couple of CDs to the mix that I am very familiar with to add some additional dimension to the test. Caedmon’s Call In The Company of Angels because it has a lot of acoustic guitar and Sarah McLachlan Fumbling Towards Ecstasy primarily for a “hidden” vocal and piano acoustic version of “Possession”.

My initial impression of the sound of the Solar Winds can be summed up in one word. Sibilance. The first track was Mclachlan’s track and it was very noticeable. This is a track that I am very familiar with and was unaccustomed to hearing this level of sibilance. I ran through the other discs and they too had increased levels over what I am used to.

In order to be fair, I attributed this up to incompatibility of the cables with my gear. I went on to determine the other attributes of these cables. The best word I can think of is lush. There was a very full bodied quality to the midrange. The bass and upper range treble was not as detailed and pronounced as with other cables. I won’t go as far to say they “colored” the sound…but I wouldn’t describe them as neutral either. The sound was not at all unpleasant…in fact it was very reminiscent to the “New England Sound” that Advent, AR and other speakers are famous for (and I am a fan of those speakers). Separation, soundstage and depth were good.

In conclusion, It was hard to get past the sibilance issue, but once there, I found some nice aspects to these cables. IF (and this is a big IF) the sibilance can be tamed, the sound is one that would not be fatiguing over long listening sessions. IMO the sound would work extremely well with jazz. I would have liked a little more detail at the extremes to balance out the “lush” quality.

Given the fact that I am not blown away by their looks and I feel there are similarly priced cables that are better…I would pass on the Solar Winds. Overall they are not a bad cable…they just aren’t a good match for the system I put them in and aren’t for me.

I want to thank Paul Stepanek, owner of www.oregondv.com for donating the Nordost Solar Winds for our review. I’m sure others will differ from me in their assessment and hopefully purchase their set from Paul.

Thanks also to Mark (doro) for putting this together. It was great fun!

dorokusai

Gidrah/Shack - Thanks much for your reviews, this is real important to the whole process.

The Solar Winds are a more application, or rather gear specific type IC, IMO.

I did not have the sibilance that Shack experienced, but certainly noticed the lack of bass from the begining. I would consider it more a tuning IC than a high performance IC. Tubes can certainly tame sibilance, but if you are a follower of SS, that isn't an option.

Unique interconnect, certainly worth trying, and listening....realize that there are two levels above this series. The Blue Heaven and Red Dawn. All of them have received great reviews, formally, but the Red Dawn has stood out among this group.

I wish I had the money to drop a Red Dawn in here for you guys, but I just am not able to do that right now. I am always working on new stuff for you guys, don't sweat it, I'll keep you busy.

dorokusai

ATC - Hey where's is your review?

dorokusai

Ah ok, I knew I read it somewhere...in the wrong place Thanks Pimpdaddy.

amulford

I have had these cables for some time, and listened to them in quite a few different ways. I used them as source cables and as pre to amp IC's.

I even rebirthed my old 2 channel set to give it a work out.

I tried several different genre of music (mostly rock):
Metallica
Yes
Steely Dan
Eagles
Robin Trower
Bob Marley and the Wailers
Vivaldi
Tchaikovsky

And I listened to them on a couple different speaker set ups:

RT2000p's in stereo
RT 5.1 set up (2000p's, CS350ls, & RT f/x surrounds)
SDA 2b's in stereo


I have to agree that they look alot more fragile than they actually are. They just don't have a sturdy look, but it is deceiving, they feel very good. Very snug fit, not something you want to switch out alot, but if you decide you really like something, you probably wouldn't want to.

I tried not to compare these to anything, for I felt it would be kind of biased. That, IMO, would not have been fair to the cables. Kind of the apples and oranges scenario. Good thing, too, for these cables do have a sound of their own.

I found them to be rather bright. Some here have described them as sibilant, but I can't really go to that point. Now I have tri lams in the HT, which are a bright tweet. I also have SL2000's in the SDA 2b's, which i wouldn't call bright, but rather detailed.

Sibilance wasn't there, but they almost seemed to add "airiness". Not really a bad thing, if you're shooting for that sound.

They have a seperating quality which I do really like. A very clear definition in the instruments which is very apparent when listening to classical. The strings are very detailed, and sweet sounding. Their inherent brightness is also a plus when listening to this style of music.

I did find them to be rather lacking in the lower end. In some of the "heavier music" they just did not have the ****. Not that they did not give any bass response, that isn't the case. But not quite what I like. The "punch" just wasn't there. It didn't "go right thru me".

All in all, I happen to to like them, but for specific types of music. I would highly recomend them for a classical listener or for someone who like accoustic jazz. I'd like to set something up just for that myself, like a single disc CD player. I find them to be that good in that genre.

I would not however recomend them for rock or more bass oriented music.

I cannot say I'm going right out and buy a set. I think the silver has given them a sound quality which I do like, But I'll have to try something else in silver to confirm this. They have made an impression, though, and I wouldn't rule out that possibility.

I have had a chance given to me by this swap that I would not have had otherwise. I have to thank Doro for coming up with this idea, and the manufacturer's for their contributions. It is a very good way to expose yourself to something different, and everyone who can should take advantage of it.

Thanks, and I hope I didn't bore you too much!!

VR3

My review/demo/shoot out

Equipment Used -
Mains - Definitive Technology BP10B
Preamp - B&K PT5
Amp - B&K ST 125.2
CD Player - Denon DCM-280

Configurations -
- Between CDP and Preamp, Nordost Solar Wind Vs. Radioshack Gold Series
- Between Amp and Preamp, Nordost Solar Wind Vs. Adcom Cables

Review Can Be Read here -

http://www.eandr.biz/Vr3_Home_Theatre_Projects_NDDemo.html

beardog03

First let me say thanks to Doro (Mark) for making this all possible.

This is one beardog`s opinion of a somewhat uncomplicated demo.....


My system;

Parasound HCA-3500
Dodd ELP pre amp w/Amprex NOS 6DJ8 tubes...dated 8/62
Ah! 4000 CDP w/7308 tubes and upsampler board installed
King Cobra I/C from pre to amp
AQ type 4 speaker cable bi-wired (2 sets running to each speaker)
Polk Audio LSi9`s

Music;

Steely Dan`s ...Everything must go
Jeff lorber.........Kickin` it
David Sanborn..timeagain

Cables Demo`d ;

Nordust Solar Winds
AQ King Cobra`s


The cool thing about the Dodd is that it has 2 seperate channels (1 & 2) so I hooked the Cobra`s to channel 1 , and the Nordust to channel 2...this made it easy to switch from cable to cable.
I just had to swap them out on the CDP.
The build quality of the Nordust was good , but reminded me of computor cables...flimsy as compared to the Cobra`s , whicth are solidly built and had better ends on them than the Nordust.The Nordust had a broken "tooth" witch didn`t seem to effect anything as far as performance (I`m guessing).The King Cobra`s have an excellent build quality...and they are red..very cool..!!

So here goes...short and to the point...

I started with Steely Dan...

The Nordust had an airy wide soundstage with great seperation.
The King Cobra`s soundstage was not as wide and airy , but more solid in center stage.
The Nordust have better highs (brighter , crisper..ie;tic-tic), more mid range sound...the piano and background vocals were more present, the bass was tight , but lacked depth.
The Cobra`s have a warmer , more "full" sound..
The high`s were tight (chip-chip), but a little more laid back.
Not as much mid range as the Nordust , but still very present.
The bass had more punch, depth, and my daughter liked them better for that reaon.!

David Sanborn...Commin home baby

This song rocks..!
The Sax and Vibes are outstanding with the Nordust, and you can hear fingers move on the strings.
Again all the same findings with this music that I just described earlier.
The Cobra`s definatly made the speakers move more , whitch made the bass almost a little sloppy...you can really tell that the amp has 500w @ 4 ohms.!

Jeff Lorber..

Half way through this CD I was wishing that the Nordust had better bass , because they dio sound good...I just wish I could combine the two cables and get it all.

Enter UPWoops..
UPS just showed up with my new MIT S1`s..
Problem solved...these cables are both cables in one.!
Outstanding in every aspect.!
I quickly put the Nordust back into the box...readied them for shipping....took the cobra`s and put them on the office rig..and enjoyed the rest of the day diggin my system.!!

Would I buy the Nordust ?>no
Did I enjoy listening to them ?>yes
Am I going to sell the Cobra`s ?>probably (to get more MIT`s)
I feel the Nordust would be a good choise for orchestra , or clasical , but not an all around cable.
The Cobra`s are a good all around cable , but the MIT`s out shine them both..
All in all I enjoyed listening to the differences in the different cables , and got to hear first hand what they each had to offer.
This program is a very cool way to enjoy yourself and get your own opinions on cables you may never otherwise have tried.

I enjoyed myself, and again, thank Mark for putting this all together...it`s a very cool way to spend a saturday....
I think my daughters enjoyed it too..!!

Beardog

Spawndn72

Equipment used:

NAD 1600 Pre-amp
Adcom 545 amp
Dual 704 TT
Pioneer multi-format CD
Pioneer Rt-707 R2R
Polk Monitor 7C's with the silk tweeters
Polk Monitor 7's with the silver coil tweeters

I liked these cables alot. They are very well built and even though they look flimsy they stood up to me changing them out several times with no troubles. The bass was tight and well defined, the midranges were clear and very detailed. The highs were very airy. With the 7C's the highs were perect and sounded very natural. With the 7's the highs were to harsh. If you like warm sounding cables, then these are not the cables for you. If you like detailed cables, then I think these will please you very much.

Thanks,
Todd