Description
This is an excellent condition pair of Nordost Quatro Fil 2x0.60m XLR interconnects. They come complete with all paperwork included and original box from Nordost. We had one more pair that we sold, this is our last pair. RETAIL PRICE was 1600 eurosNordost Quattro Fil Interconnectsby Doug Blackburn Review at a GlanceSoundTo the point, musically speaking; clean, clear and precise -- but not sterile.FeaturesVery flexible; use special Nordost Z-connector RCAs.UseEasily routed around components and away from other cables and power cords.ValueBig money at $1600 per meter pair, but one of the best there is.Oh nooooooooo, another cable review. How many cable reviews can you stand to read? Well, if you’re like me, a lot of them. Cables are simultaneously interesting and frustrating. There’s always something better on the horizon. Every cable manufacturer has the next great thing in cables and the best cable technology. The minute you finally buy some good cables, ten better ones suddenly appear. Wait a minute -- isn’t this just like the computer market, the automobile market, the mutual-fund market, the spy-equipment market, and the ski-board market? Don’t let cables get you down -- there’s something out there for everybody.If you don’t yet think cables sound different, jeez, evolve a little will you, Neanderthal? Are you still wrapped around the objectivist axle believing cables don’t sound different because the differences can’t be measured? Get over it. There’s no meter, ‘scope, or spectrum analyzer that can tell you von Karajan from Szell, Jagger from Tyler, Brubeck from Hirsch, Bacharach from McCartney, Severance Hall from Sydney Opera Hall. Yet there are also important differences we can hear, differences that mean something to us. We hear subtleties in sound that differentiate banjo strings from three different manufacturers and violins from three different centuries; do you really think audio cables don’t sound different? [insert sound byte of maniacal laughing here]On to the subject of this review, Nordost’s recent top-of-the-line interconnect, Quattro Fil. Here we have the first departure from Nordost’s previously all-flat cable world. Other than Moon Glo digital cables, all the other Nordost cables have been flat multi-conductor ribbon cables. Quattro Fil has a small round cross-section, pretty close to the same size as the wire coming out of the end of your computer’s mouse. I’m going to defer to the short but descriptive text describing the construction of Quattro Fil from Nordost’s website:The interconnect consists of four groups of conductors. Each group is made up of seven 99.999999% OFC conductors covered with 50 mils of extruded silver. Each conductor is wrapped with a very fine helix Teflon spacer that has minimal contact to the surface of the metal. A Teflon tube is extruded over the spacer, sealing the conductor and suspending it in inert air. This prevents oxidation. The four Teflon tubes are then wound around each other and are bonded together by a proprietary wrapping technique. A dual layer of silver-served shielding is then wound around the assembly. Over this a Teflon jacket is extruded.To further explain: the spiral Teflon monofilament wrap holds the outer insulation away from the conductor. This spiral (helix) wrap is spread out so that it is not covering the whole surface of the conductor -- there is air in the gap along the spiral/helix. This means the dielectric around the conductors is more air than Teflon, and air is as about as good as a dielectric gets. Nordost quotes a dielectric constant of 1.38 for Quattro Fil -- a very low value. The name Quattro Fil comes from the four conductors and the monofilament used in the construction of the cable.The thinness of these interconnects makes them no-brainers to use. There’s no heavy weight to worry about, no stiffness to contend with, no thickness to get in the way of cable routing. The RCAs are the usual Nordost Z connectors -- a spring-loaded sleeve retracts as you insert the connector causing a ground connection before the center pin connection. My opinion of this kind of RCA remains quite high. Nordost is offering Quattro Fil as balanced with XLR connectors for those who prefer or need that type of interconnect.Getting to the pointThe $1,600 Quattro Fil is a very fine-sounding interconnect. The strengths are: transparency, neutrality, top to bottom balance, flat response (no obvious bumps or suck-outs), dynamics and size of the soundstage. There is an almost surgical precision to the sound, a clear purpose that cuts right to the musical point. Your listening impression is one of nothing added, nothing lost. Does this make Quattro Fil perfect? Heck, I don’t know. What does perfect mean? Perfect for me? Perfect for you? Perfect for everybody? Forget that concept -- it just doesn’t exist. I doubt they are perfect, but I can’t tell you that there aren’t any obvious faults either. Not that there aren’t differences in sound compared to other cables -- more on that later.Associated EquipmentLoudspeakers – Vandersteen 3A with two Vandersteen 2Wq subwoofers.Amplifiers – Warner Imaging Endangered Species 200w, Belles 150A with binding-post upgrade.Preamplifier – Audible Illusions Modulus 3A with Gold phono boards.Analog – Roksan Xerxes turntable, SME V tonearm rewired with Nordost Moon Glo cable, low-output Cardas Heart cartridge.Digital – Panasonic A-310 DVD player, CAL CL-25 CD/DVD player.Interconnects – Magnan Signature, Nordost SPM Reference, Nirvana SL.Speaker cables – Magnan Signature; Nordost SPM Reference, JPS Labs NC, Nirvana SL.Power cords – VansEvers Pandora and Pandora Photon; JPS Labs Analog, Digital, and Amplifier cords; Audio Power Industries Power Link 313; Magnan Signature.Power conditioners – Tice Power Block III Rev B; VansEvers Model 85, Unlimiter, jr. Video, jr. Analog, Reference Balanced 5; Monster HTS 3000, 2000 and 800; AudioPrism Power Foundation III and Quiet Line Mk I; Magnan Signature; Audio Power Industries Power Wedge Ultra 115, 116, and Power Enhancer Ultra. You can listen to Quattro Fil critically for about 30 seconds. Beyond that your brain starts telling you: cut it out; the cables are fine. It’s an eerie sort of thing; you want to listen for problems, but your brain takes you hostage and forces you to listen to music instead. It’s a cruel world for audio-hardware reviewers when you can’t even pick a good product apart because music is just too distracting.One cool thing about the precise sound of the Quattro Fil interconnect is that it isn’t a result of some coloration or emphasis/de-emphasis of a frequency range. You play a recording that is very clinical-sounding itself (i.e., Devo, Kraftwerk, most techno music, etc.), and Quattro Fil doesn’t throw the balance over the top and make the music annoying or unlistenable. In fact, everything you play though Quattro Fil sounds good -- clean, clear and precise, but not sterile.Bring on the challengersFirst up, is the Nordost SPM Reference -- $1150 per meter pair and previously on my highly regarded short list. I’m keeping SPM Reference on the short list, but Quattro Fil is better. SPM has some extra bass warmth that isn’t there with Quattro Fil. SPM may be the better choice for a lean-sounding system, while Quattro Fil would be better for a system that already has the right balance. SPM is more restrained and less harmonically rich in the higher frequencies too. The highs just don’t float and resonate like they do through Quattro Fil. Furthermore, Quattro Fil is more dynamic-sounding and more transparent than SPM -- but not by a lot. You really have to compare well-broken-in and currently in-use SPM and Quattro Fil to each other to notice these differences. Use either cable after it has been sitting around unused for a week or more and many of the differences won’t be audible. I still enjoy the sound of SPM Reference and find it a worthy, lower-cost companion to Quattro Fil. If your system is a little over energetic on top and a little warmth-shy down below, SPM Reference could be the real deal for you. You should understand that I’m not talking about great gobs of difference here -- your lean and harsh solid-state gear from the 1980s or earlier isn’t going to become listenable with SPM Reference. We’re talking about small differences.Moving right along, next up are the $1650 Magnan Signature interconnects. These proved again that matching levels is required to get an accurate relative sense for what the Magnan Signature cables really sound like. The 30k-ohm impedance of the Magnan Signature interconnects means you have to crank up the volume control a fair amount to get the same playback level. Once I got levels matched, there was a rather easily recognizable difference. Quattro Fil had a cleaner, higher precision, clinically perfect sound -- very neutral, very transparent. Magnan Signature sounded seductive, liquid, rich (like real cream in your coffee versus 2% milk). Magnan Signature gives up a slight amount of precision, mostly below 100Hz, for the heightened artistic flair it possesses. The Magnans did cymbals with a more realistic combination of shshshsh and ring, yet I could not feel unsatisfied by the cymbals with Quattro Fil in use. Quattro Fil rendered Maria Marquez on Daboa’s From the Gekko [Triple Earth trecd 115] as a wonderful and expressive vocalist. Magnan Signature rendered her with glints of sensuality and fullness of tone that were small but attention-grabbing. The dense mix and high energy on many of the tracks on The Mavericks’ Trampoline [Uni/MCA Nashville 70018] are rendered with clarity and precision by Quattro Fil. On the same tracks, the Magnan Signature interconnect gives a sense of richness and roundness of tone that is most attractive and inviting. Both cables create a most pleasing sense of space and proportion -- large, precise, believable, and even enveloping with some recordings.In the end, the choice for people shopping in this price range is going to be the sound that pleases them the most. These two cables don’t sound the same, but there is not a clear winner. During listening sessions, I would rarely find myself terribly interested in changing cables no matter which one I was listening to at the time.Enough already; it’s only a cable!OK, I’m almost outta here -- just a few overly obsequious sentences to close the review. (Nah, I cant do that to ya; lets get this over with!) Don’t ever tell me it’s only a cable. Cables are too important to be dismissed that easily, and Nordost Quattro Fil proves it
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This is an excellent condition pair of Nordost Quatro Fil 2x0.60m XLR interconnects. They come complete with all paperwork included and original box from Nordost. RETAIL PRICE was 1600 euros Nordost Quattro Fil Interconnectsby Doug Blackburn Review at a GlanceSoundTo the point, musically speaking; clean, clear and precise -- but not sterile.FeaturesVery flexible; use special Nordost Z-connector RCAs.UseEasily routed around components and away from other cables and power cords.ValueBig money at $1600 per meter pair, but one of the best there is.Oh nooooooooo, another cable review. How many cable reviews can you stand to read? Well, if you’re like me, a lot of them. Cables are simultaneously interesting and frustrating. There’s always something better on the horizon. Every cable manufacturer has the next great thing in cables and the best cable technology. The minute you finally buy some good cables, ten better ones suddenly appear. Wait a minute -- isn’t this just like the computer market, the automobile market, the mutual-fund market, the spy-equipment market, and the ski-board market? Don’t let cables get you down -- there’s something out there for everybody.If you don’t yet think cables sound different, jeez, evolve a little will you, Neanderthal? Are you still wrapped around the objectivist axle believing cables don’t sound different because the differences can’t be measured? Get over it. There’s no meter, ‘scope, or spectrum analyzer that can tell you von Karajan from Szell, Jagger from Tyler, Brubeck from Hirsch, Bacharach from McCartney, Severance Hall from Sydney Opera Hall. Yet there are also important differences we can hear, differences that mean something to us. We hear subtleties in sound that differentiate banjo strings from three different manufacturers and violins from three different centuries; do you really think audio cables don’t sound different? [insert sound byte of maniacal laughing here]On to the subject of this review, Nordost’s recent top-of-the-line interconnect, Quattro Fil. Here we have the first departure from Nordost’s previously all-flat cable world. Other than Moon Glo digital cables, all the other Nordost cables have been flat multi-conductor ribbon cables. Quattro Fil has a small round cross-section, pretty close to the same size as the wire coming out of the end of your computer’s mouse. I’m going to defer to the short but descriptive text describing the construction of Quattro Fil from Nordost’s website: The interconnect consists of four groups of conductors. Each group is made up of seven 99.999999% OFC conductors covered with 50 mils of extruded silver. Each conductor is wrapped with a very fine helix Teflon spacer that has minimal contact to the surface of the metal. A Teflon tube is extruded over the spacer, sealing the conductor and suspending it in inert air. This prevents oxidation. The four Teflon tubes are then wound around each other and are bonded together by a proprietary wrapping technique. A dual layer of silver-served shielding is then wound around the assembly. Over this a Teflon jacket is extruded.To further explain: the spiral Teflon monofilament wrap holds the outer insulation away from the conductor. This spiral (helix) wrap is spread out so that it is not covering the whole surface of the conductor -- there is air in the gap along the spiral/helix. This means the dielectric around the conductors is more air than Teflon, and air is as about as good as a dielectric gets. Nordost quotes a dielectric constant of 1.38 for Quattro Fil -- a very low value. The name Quattro Fil comes from the four conductors and the monofilament used in the construction of the cable.The thinness of these interconnects makes them no-brainers to use. There’s no heavy weight to worry about, no stiffness to contend with, no thickness to get in the way of cable routing. The RCAs are the usual Nordost Z connectors -- a spring-loaded sleeve retracts as you insert the connector causing a ground connection before the center pin connection. My opinion of this kind of RCA remains quite high. Nordost is offering Quattro Fil as balanced with XLR connectors for those who prefer or need that type of interconnect.Getting to the pointThe $1,600 Quattro Fil is a very fine-sounding interconnect. The strengths are: transparency, neutrality, top to bottom balance, flat response (no obvious bumps or suck-outs), dynamics and size of the soundstage. There is an almost surgical precision to the sound, a clear purpose that cuts right to the musical point. Your listening impression is one of nothing added, nothing lost. Does this make Quattro Fil perfect? Heck, I don’t know. What does perfect mean? Perfect for me? Perfect for you? Perfect for everybody? Forget that concept -- it just doesn’t exist. I doubt they are perfect, but I can’t tell you that there aren’t any obvious faults either. Not that there aren’t differences in sound compared to other cables -- more on that later.Associated Equipment Loudspeakers – Vandersteen 3A with two Vandersteen 2Wq subwoofers. Amplifiers – Warner Imaging Endangered Species 200w, Belles 150A with binding-post upgrade. Preamplifier – Audible Illusions Modulus 3A with Gold phono boards. Analog – Roksan Xerxes turntable, SME V tonearm rewired with Nordost Moon Glo cable, low-output Cardas Heart cartridge. Digital – Panasonic A-310 DVD player, CAL CL-25 CD/DVD player. Interconnects – Magnan Signature, Nordost SPM Reference, Nirvana SL. Speaker cables – Magnan Signature; Nordost SPM Reference, JPS Labs NC, Nirvana SL. Power cords – VansEvers Pandora and Pandora Photon; JPS Labs Analog, Digital, and Amplifier cords; Audio Power Industries Power Link 313; Magnan Signature. Power conditioners – Tice Power Block III Rev B; VansEvers Model 85, Unlimiter, jr. Video, jr. Analog, Reference Balanced 5; Monster HTS 3000, 2000 and 800; AudioPrism Power Foundation III and Quiet Line Mk I; Magnan Signature; Audio Power Industries Power Wedge Ultra 115, 116, and Power Enhancer Ultra. You can listen to Quattro Fil critically for about 30 seconds. Beyond that your brain starts telling you: cut it out; the cables are fine. It’s an eerie sort of thing; you want to listen for problems, but your brain takes you hostage and forces you to listen to music instead. It’s a cruel world for audio-hardware reviewers when you can’t even pick a good product apart because music is just too distracting. One cool thing about the precise sound of the Quattro Fil interconnect is that it isn’t a result of some coloration or emphasis/de-emphasis of a frequency range. You play a recording that is very clinical-sounding itself (i.e., Devo, Kraftwerk, most techno music, etc.), and Quattro Fil doesn’t throw the balance over the top and make the music annoying or unlistenable. In fact, everything you play though Quattro Fil sounds good -- clean, clear and precise, but not sterile. Bring on the challengers First up, is the Nordost SPM Reference -- $1150 per meter pair and previously on my highly regarded short list. I’m keeping SPM Reference on the short list, but Quattro Fil is better. SPM has some extra bass warmth that isn’t there with Quattro Fil. SPM may be the better choice for a lean-sounding system, while Quattro Fil would be better for a system that already has the right balance. SPM is more restrained and less harmonically rich in the higher frequencies too. The highs just don’t float and resonate like they do through Quattro Fil. Furthermore, Quattro Fil is more dynamic-sounding and more transparent than SPM -- but not by a lot. You really have to compare well-broken-in and currently in-use SPM and Quattro Fil to each other to notice these differences. Use either cable after it has been sitting around unused for a week or more and many of the differences won’t be audible. I still enjoy the sound of SPM Reference and find it a worthy, lower-cost companion to Quattro Fil. If your system is a little over energetic on top and a little warmth-shy down below, SPM Reference could be the real deal for you. You should understand that I’m not talking about great gobs of difference here -- your lean and harsh solid-state gear from the 1980s or earlier isn’t going to become listenable with SPM Reference. We’re talking about small differences. Moving right along, next up are the $1650 Magnan Signature interconnects. These proved again that matching levels is required to get an accurate relative sense for what the Magnan Signature cables really sound like. The 30k-ohm impedance of the Magnan Signature interconnects means you have to crank up the volume control a fair amount to get the same playback level. Once I got levels matched, there was a rather easily recognizable difference. Quattro Fil had a cleaner, higher precision, clinically perfect sound -- very neutral, very transparent. Magnan Signature sounded seductive, liquid, rich (like real cream in your coffee versus 2% milk). Magnan Signature gives up a slight amount of precision, mostly below 100Hz, for the heightened artistic flair it possesses. The Magnans did cymbals with a more realistic combination of shshshsh and ring, yet I could not feel unsatisfied by the cymbals with Quattro Fil in use. Quattro Fil rendered Maria Marquez on Daboa’s From the Gekko [Triple Earth trecd 115] as a wonderful and expressive vocalist. Magnan Signature rendered her with glints of sensuality and fullness of tone that were small but attention-grabbing. The dense mix and high energy on many of the tracks on The Mavericks’ Trampoline [Uni/MCA Nashville 70018] are rendered with clarity and precision by Quattro Fil. On the same tracks, the Magnan Signature interconnect gives a sense of richness and roundness of tone that is most attractive and inviting. Both cables create a most pleasing sense of space and proportion -- large, precise, believable, and even enveloping with some recordings. In the end, the choice for people shopping in this price range is going to be the sound that pleases them the most. These two cables don’t sound the same, but there is not a clear winner. During listening sessions, I would rarely find myself terribly interested in changing cables no matter which one I was listening to at the time. Enough already; it’s only a cable! OK, I’m almost outta here -- just a few overly obsequious sentences to close the review. (Nah, I cant do that to ya; lets get this over with!) Don’t ever tell me it’s only a cable. Cables are too important to be dismissed that easily, and Nordost Quattro Fil proves it
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