Intro
Contents
We recently subjected four wonderful interlinks from Nordost to our AlphaTests. Now it’s the turn of the speaker cables in this series. We pick up the Nordost White Lightning, Purple Flare, Blue Heaven and Red Dawn from the Nordost Leif 3 series.
We already explained a bit about Nordost‘s philosophy in the review of the Nordost Leif 3 interlinks. And also how the Leif 3 series borrows technology from the series above it. If you want to know more, you can read this review; it’s a shame to repeat ourselves again.
Like the Leif 3 interlinks, the speaker cables use solid core, silver plated OFC conductors. Of course, the number of conductors increases as we go up in the series. We also see the use of FEP: an insulation material that guarantees high speed. We have seen in the review of the interlinks, that the use of FEP is not nonsense: Nordost cables are really fast. And that is – our opinion – also audible.
Ribbon
What is remarkable about the Nordost Leif 3 speaker cables is that Nordost builds the cable like a ribbon. Nordost reports that this flat construction guarantees low capacitance (and thus higher speed), minimizes skin effect and also minimizes interaction between the conductors. This should benefit playback quality. Note that lower capacitance results in higher inductance. This can cause oscillation, about which more later.
At the end of our test-models we see the Z-plug banana plugs. Spades are also possible. The banana plugs clamp well with the TAD Evo2 terminals and Pass Labs X150.8 amplifier.
