Cable Asylum: REVIEW: Nordost Blue Heaven Speaker Cable Cable by magiccarpetride

Model:	Blue Heaven Speaker Cable
Category:	Cable
Suggested Retail Price:	$600 10 ft.
Description:	Biwireable
Manufacturer URL:	Nordost

Review by magiccarpetride on April 06, 2011 at 13:17:12
IP Address: 207.219.52.100 Add Your Review
for the Blue Heaven Speaker Cable

I am one of those skeptics who never believed that cables, wires or chords could make a difference in the sound quality. Hence I was always using economy style cabling in my hi fi. My latest speaker purchase (Magnepan MG1-IMP) had Cardas Crosslink speaker cables included, and I found the sound to be incredibly good. So I never stopped, even for a second, to think about upgrading Cardas to a pair of better speaker cables.

Fast forward to about four weeks ago, when a friend of mine came over for a visit and brought a pair of his Nordost Blue Heaven speaker cables. He suggested I give them a try, which I promptly did. I replaced my Cardas cables with Blue Heaven, and we sat down for a listen.

I've immediately noticed a huge difference in sound. The sound changed from being muddled, warm and wooly to becoming crystal clear and 'see through'. At first I was taken aback, thinking that perhaps that had to do with my particular mood at that moment, etc. However, since my friend was kind enough to leave his Blue Heaven cables with me for the weekend, that gave me ample time to evaluate and re-evaluate them at my leisure.

The next day (Saturday morning), my wife and sat down for a listen. We went over the tracks both of us are very fond of and know inside out. With each and every track, we were blown away at how better, more detailed, more life-like the music sounded. Curious, I stopped the playback and swapped Blue Heaven cables back to my old Cardas cables. Sure enough, all the immediate magic that my wife and I have been basking in that morning disappeared, and we were back to the muddy, wooly, artificially warm and somewhat imprecise sound, with the bass that now all of a sudden sounded 'confused' and boomy. Switch back yet again to Blue Heaven, and it's as if someone turned the lights on in the room. The bass became taut, firm, strong, nimble and crystal clear.

At that point my wife stopped me and told me: "You know what, I don't think you'll be able to go back to your old cables, right? Why don't you dress up and go out and buy those cables right now!"

"Really, sweetheart?" (I couldn't believe my luck!)

A couple of hours later I returned home with my own pair of Nordost Blue Heaven 2 meters long biwiring speaker cables. I put them on, and immediately noticed a bit more stiffness to the sound. Yep, these babies need some burn-in time.

Right now, as I'm writing this review, my cables have been in my system for about four weeks solid. At 2 to 3 hours of playing time per day (average), they are approaching the recommended first milestone of 80 hours of burn-in time. The sound definitely keeps changing as the cables are burning in, but not in a particularly dramatic fashion. People who have lived with these cables for some time now tell me that they need at least 150 hours of burn-in time, some even say up to 6 months. I can't find a reason to disagree with that, as I've already experienced how the sound keeps changing with the burn-in.

The changes are not always for the better, I hasten to add. It tends to go through slight ups and downs. Like on a few occasions, as the speaker cables were burning in, I would detect certain harshness in the upper register. That would start bothering me, but luckily, with some more burning in, the harshness would go away and the sound would return back to its natural state. As these things oscillate in an unpredictable manner, one thing that continues to constantly and predictably improve with the burn-in is the detail retrieval. It seems that after each 2 or 3 days of playing, I am able to hear new, never previously heard details on the familiar tracks.

Last night, for example, I was carried and completely swept away by a whole bunch of never before heard details in instrumentation and in ambiance while listening to Santana's "Guajira" (from the Santana III CD). I was literally startled with so many new sonic cues emerging from the soundscape, especially in terms of barely audible sonic cues coming out of the sundry of percussion on that track. On top of that, space, much more space surrounding all those percussion instruments contributed to the very convincing and extremely engrossing sense of being carried away by the live band playing all those insane rhythms in front of you.

Female vocals, such as on David Byrne's "Classic Brazil: O Samba" compilation, are nothing short of breathtaking. But still one of the biggest advantages of these cables over Cardas is in the bass area. I can now for the first time ever hear very clearly what the bass player is doing. The bass is always very strong, taut, nimble and clean, never muddy or boomy. And it actually SINGS!

Lastly, the imaging, the instruments/voices positioning is completely transformed with these cables. Where Cardas was able to mostly hint at the positioning of the instruments on the soundstage, Blue Heaven refines that hinting with laser sharp precision, so that now it gets easy to pinpoint the exact location within millimetres. Not only is the precision of left-to-right positioning much more polished now, the front-to-back imaging is greatly improved too. Also, Blue Heaven projects a much more precise location of floor-to-ceiling imaging -- some instruments/voices now appear much 'taller' than with Cardas.

I have never been in the situation to hear speaker cables that would be more expensive than Nordost Blue Heaves, so it is impossible for me at this point to imagine how could the sound quality be improved over what these cables can offer. I will definitely have to wait for at least a few more months for these cables to complete their proper burn-in cycle before I could fully evaluate them. But even this early in the game, I'm hearing such improvements that I am confident to recommend these cables to anyone who is interested in squeezing the last bit of music out their CDs etc.

The only caveat would be that what sounds good on my system may not translate onto other people's systems. Try before buy is your best bet (especially if you have a nice friend who could borrow these cable to you for a couple of days).

Product Weakness:	Long burn-in period
Product Strengths:	Revealing, quite neutral sounding, incredible imaging and soundstage, most neutral bass ever heard, plus speed, speed, speed

Associated Equipment for this Review:

Amplifier: DPA 200s
Preamplifier (or None if Integrated): DSP 2000
Sources (CDP/Turntable): Logitech Squeezebox Touch (modified)
Speakers: Magnepan MG1-IMP
Cables/Interconnects: Belkin Pure AV Silver
Music Used (Genre/Selections): Classical, jazz, pop, rock, blues, world, electronica
Time Period/Length of Audition: 3 weeks
Other (Power Conditioner etc.): Belkin Pure AV PF30
Type of Audition/Review: Product Owner

Amplifier:	DPA 200s
Preamplifier (or None if Integrated):	DSP 2000
Sources (CDP/Turntable):	Logitech Squeezebox Touch (modified)
Speakers:	Magnepan MG1-IMP
Cables/Interconnects:	Belkin Pure AV Silver
Music Used (Genre/Selections):	Classical, jazz, pop, rock, blues, world, electronica
Time Period/Length of Audition:	3 weeks
Other (Power Conditioner etc.):	Belkin Pure AV PF30
Type of Audition/Review:	Product Owner