Vinylphile Magazine : Equipment Reviews

Nordost • Frey Interconnects and Speaker Cables

By Rich Teer | June 4th, 2010

Cable reviews are somewhat of a thorny subject, usually met with derision from detractors who claim that all cables sound alike. On the surface, their arguments can be compelling: after all, provided it is of sufficient gauge to do the job it is being tasked to do, a wire is a wire, right? While I do agree that cable differences are usually more subtle than (for example) those between speakers, I’ve heard with my own ears differences between enough cables to accept as an incontrovertible fact the proposition that cables can sound different. (Note that I am not asserting that all cables do sound different, just that they can sound different.) As an aside, it’s interesting to observe how many cable sound detractors cite measurements and what others say to support their arguments, and how few of them will actually expend any effort testing with the only tools that matter: their ears. One can only speculate how much higher the signal to noise ratio of some audio forums would be if those detractors spent as much effort in listening to cables as they did in telling us how they all sound the same, but I digress...

Nordost first appeared on my audio radar screen about 10 years ago, when I read about their breathtakingly expensive—but, by all accounts, breathtakingly good—Valhalla cables. A few years later I managed to buy myself a pair of near-entry-level Blue Heaven interconnects, with which I was very impressed. In 2007, Nordost once again upped the stratospherically priced cable ante by launching their current statement cable, the Odin.

Fortunately for us mere mortals, Nordost’s wire wares are available in several price ranges, from their entry level Wyrewizard and Flatline series (the Blue Heaven cables are a member of the latter), to their Reference (Tyr and Valhalla) and Supreme Reference (Odin) series. Straddling the huge performance (and price) gap between the Flatline and Reference series are the cables in the Norse series. In ascending price, these are the Baldur, the Heimdall, and the Frey. It is the latter of these which is the subject of this review.

Technical Details

At the pinnacle of Nordost’s mid-range Norse series of cables, the Frey is available as an interconnect and a speaker cable. The Frey interconnect is made up from six 26 AWG strands of 99.99999% pure oxygen free copper (OFC), extruded over each of which is 60 microns of silver. Wrapped around each of the six strands is a fluorinated ethylene propylene (FEP) monofilament thread, wound in an open helix, and extruded over that is an FEP sleeve. FEP is very similar to PTFE (which is most well known by its DuPont brand name, Teflon), sharing its properties of low friction and chemical inertness.

The best dielectric is none at all (i.e., a vacuum or air), but a cable constructed using such a dielectric would be unwieldy; in addition to mechanic integrity, real world cables require a degree of flexibility. The purpose of the monofilament thread then is to act as a spacer between a strand of cable and its FEP sheath. This results in a dielectric which is about 80% air, because the FEP sleeve never touches the cable strand itself. To provide a high degree of immunity from radio frequency interference (RFI), the six strands are wrapped in a 97% braid. Finally, the whole assembly is sheathed in a purple FEP tube and terminated with WBT NextGen gold-plated copper connectors, which are said to offer a superior low-mass connection between the cables and the equipment to which they are connected. High quality XLR connectors are also available to facilitate the cable’s use in systems that use balanced connections.

The Frey speaker cable is constructed in a manner similar to its matching interconnect: it is composed of twenty eight 24 AWG strands of 99.99999% pure OFC, extruded over each of which is 60 microns of silver. Each of these strands is wrapped in a FEP monofilament strand, over which is extruded an FEP sleeve. The strands are arranged in Nordost’s trademark flat array in groups of seven, and terminated in either low-mass Nordost Z plugs or gold-plated copper spades. As well as being aesthetically pleasing, the flat array is said by Nordost to minimise electrical interactions within the cable (specifically the cable’s capacitance and inductance).

The Frey speaker cables can be ordered with either two or four connectors on each end (to facilitate bi-wiring); the review set was configured in typical bi-wiring manner, with one pair of spade connectors on the amplifier end of the cable and two pairs of spades on the speaker end.

Setup and Listening

Apart from dressing them so that signal cables are as far as possible from each other and (more importantly) AC cables, and if they must touch, try to do so perpendicularly, there’s not much one needs to do to set up cables. The tiny signal from a cartridge to the phono stage (or preamp if it has a built-in phono stage) is the most important—and most delicate—signal in a system with vinyl as a primary source, so that’s where I placed the Nordost Frey interconnect (the six metre interconnect between my Audio Research SP-9 Mk 2 preamp and my PrimaLuna ProLogue Seven monoblocks is also Nordost Frey).

After evaluating the interconnect, the Frey speaker cable was added, replacing the QED Qudos. As I suspect it is with many cable families, the strengths of the Frey are cumulative, and become more apparent as it makes up more of the signal chain. The following therefore describes the effect of having my whole system, from turntable to speakers, wired with Frey interconnects and speaker cable (matching power cables will have to wait until another time).

From the first track I played, it was obvious that the Nordost Frey was something special. Music had a much fuller sound: before I installed the Frey interconnect the sound was a bit muffled, as though being heard through a door. But with the Frey, it sounded like the door had been opened. Not only was the sound more clear, low level details were resolved with much greater precision.

With the Frey, timbral, spatial, and temporal information is conveyed very accurately. Bass is quick, deep, authoritative, and tuneful. The fundamentals of many notes lie in the bass and lower midrange, so accurate bass reproduction is a must if the music played through our systems is to be a reasonable facsimile of the real thing. I could detect no thickening or other nasties to suggest that the bass was being compromised. The bass thrum that can be heard periodically during the first epilogue of Jeff Wayne’s musical version of The War of the Worlds [CBS 96000] and the bass drum on Fritz Reiner’s reading of Prokofieff’s Lieutenant Kije [Classic Records/RCA Victor LSC-2150] while conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra are wonderfully full yet well defined.

The midrange and treble are similarly unmolested by the Frey. Highs like cymbals, flute, and piano were passed through without hardening or added sibilance. Some cables smear or roll off the treble; fortunately, the Frey is not guilty of such misdemeanours, making sounds like the harpsichord more natural and easy to follow. A couple of my favourite examples of this are from The War of the Worlds and Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, as played by the Orchestra Gasparo da Salo del Festival di Brescia e Bergamo on Fone’s double LP recorded in 1987 [Fone 87 F 04]. Other examples of the Frey’s treble purity are the clarity with which the tambourine that can be heard just before and during the first epilogue of The War of the Worlds, the xylophone near the end of the first epilogue, and the bells that accompany the piano near the beginning of Mike Oldfield’s wonderful debut LP, Tubular Bells [Virgin Records V2001].

Talking of Tubular Bells, it is a great record for demonstrating the very wide soundstage the Frey is capable of reproducing, and—more impressively—the pin-point imaging of the various instruments. I’ve heard the former before in my system, but I was shocked at how much of an improvement in the latter the Frey engendered. I’m at a loss to explain how a simple cable can effect the imaging, but my theory is that the Frey does a fantastic job of preserving the temporal (and therefore spatial) information in the signal: all the harmonics of a given sound arrive at the speaker at the same time, resulting in more precise imaging. In other words, I think the Frey passes all frequencies at the same speed, whereas lesser cables have small variations in the speed at which the audio signal is passed, which manifests itself as indistinct image placement.

Dynamic range seemed to be expanded with the Frey, too. I don’t mean in an exaggerated, unnatural manner, and I don’t mean that the sound was louder. What I am saying is that although the quietest ppp passages didn’t seem to be much quieter and the loudest fff passages didn’t seem to be any louder, there was a finer granularity in between the two levels. For an analogy of the latter, consider a computer display using an 8-bit palette which is then switched to a 16-bit palette: the brightest and darkest hues are the same, but there are many more shades between them.

Verdict

With the Frey, Nordost have a cable that has many strengths, and few (if any) weaknesses that I can identify. Unfortunately for most audiophiles, such great performance comes at a great price: a 2 m length of Frey interconnect will set you back $1,399 and a 2 m set of Frey speaker cables is $2,499. I say unfortunately because in the right system, the results justify the expense. A general rule of thumb is to allocate a budget of between 10% and 20% of the total system cost on cables, so buying a set of Frey cables for use in a $5,000 system is preposterous. But those same cables in the context of a $50,000 system make much more sense (you wouldn’t put cheap tires on a Ferrari, would you?).

More succinctly: with the Frey, Nordost have a real winner. They can be the icing on the proverbial cake in the right system, and I strongly recommend an audition if you are in the market for cables in this price range. Can Nordost’s Valhalla and Odin really be that much better? I can’t wait to find out!

Specifications

Description (interconnect) Extruded silver over 99.99999% pure copper 26 AWG solid conductors, FEP monofilament helix and dielectric. Available with WBT NextGen gold-plated copper RCA plugs or XLR connectors.
Capacitance 26.0 pF/ft.
Inductance 0.06 µH/ft.
DC Resistance 15.0 Ohms per 1,000 ft/304 m.
Price $949 for 1 m, $1,189 for 1.5 m, $1,399 for 2 m (add $210 per additional 50 cm).
Description (speaker cable) Extruded silver over 99.99999% pure copper 26 AWG solid conductors, FEP monofilament helix and dielectric. Available with Nordost Z plugs or gold-plated copper spades.
Capacitance 11.8 pF/ft.
Inductance 0.096 µH/ft.
DC Resistance 3.7 Ohms per 1,000 ft/304 m.
Price $2,059 for 1 m (add $220 per additional 50 cm).
Serial numbers of units reviewed R01830 (interconnect) and 82425 (speaker cable).
Warranty Lifetime non-transferable.

Manufacturer

Nordost
200 Homer Avenue
Ashland, MA 01721
USA
(508) 881-1116
www.nordost.com

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