by Michael

24 Pages of Notes on about 15 Hours of Shootouts

These shootouts focused on primarily Jorma Design interconnects and speaker cables, [the No.3, No.1, Origo and PRIME but not the No.2], and Nordost ODIN interconnect and speaker cable kept appearing [largely because everyone was curious and as a kind of reference standard] and INDRA was thrown in once in awhile.

The Audio Note PALLAS was not part of the shootouts – it has kind of been relegated to the ‘ridiculously excellent price/performance digital/phono cable’ category [a category it now dominates]. Perhaps we are mistaken to relegate it so. We need to try and throw it in as a regular interconnect sometime.

None of the other Audio Note orNordost cables were shot at because, well, this was really about evaluating the Jorma No. 3 and Origo and we needed to focus on something … otherwise we’d be here all year doing the shootouts [awwwwww :-)].

A quick summary:

Origo [or-eh-go] means origin in Swedish. At about $5200 or so the first meter the interconnect kills things at the $4K level. It is not the PRIME [at $10K] – but it has lots of resolution and is very open and clean.

The No.3 [their least expensive cable] is very much a cable that sounds like its more precious siblings – just somewhat leaner and with less resolution, and with less presence and image specificity – but the tone is still spot on [just not as rich] and it is quite clear sounding with above average separation.

Using ODIN interconnect to go from the Marten Coltrane Supreme speaker crossover to the amps [Lamm ML2.1 in this case], and Jorma PRIME speaker cable on the main towers and Nordost ODIN(!) on the bass towers is now our favorite setup.

The full shootout report will be forthcoming…

in High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Jorma Design / Nordost 0 comments
 by Michael

The Cable Shootout Results will be Forthcoming

As many of you know, and many do not, we have been conducting a large number of cable shootouts. They are many focused on the new Jorma Design ‘Orego’ cable that sits between their No. 1 [approx. Nordost Valhalla pricing and performance] and their statement PRIME cable.

Also thrown in are the Nordost ODIN [well.. why not. Wouldn’t you?] and even the Stealth INDRA [interconnect]. We are shooting out with both interconnects and speaker cables – and of course, various combinations thereof.

Hopefully later this week we will have the report up… here I think. Neli says I am not posting on the blog enough, so…. I’ll try and post store-ish stuff here and ramblings and philosophy and humor and perspectives on the magazine.

in High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Jorma Design / Nordost 0 comments
 by Michael

Stereophile post on our room at T.H.E. Show, CES 2009

Wes Phillips had some very nice things to say about our Audio Note U.K. room [with Nordost ODIN and Acrolink powercords, HRS M3 isolation bases and Nimbus Couplers] at:

Ongaku Means Ecstasy

We thank Wes and J.A. for visiting our room and posting their impressions and are, of course, pleased, especially Neli [! :-)] who staffed the room by herself for the entire show.

Have to say, this being the first time I recollect seeing these two in action, they really seem to enjoy being audiophiles and playing music. Not all [aka few] show reporters are like this, many coming off as if it is all a lot of hard work [which it is].

[Not sure how I come off . To Constantine Soo (Dagogo), I think I come off as someone who gets in the way of his trying to listen a lot ;-)))]

Funny thing [or not] while Neli was trying, and trying, and trying some more to find a CD in the folder, I mentioned something like maybe putting CDs at random in the folder wasn’t such a good idea [actually, what I said was probably a lot less coherent], expecting good ole wifey to come back with a witty, if not outright scathing, rejoinder and lighten up the situation a little bit. You know, at least something like ‘ASShole’ with that big smile of hers [no, she doesn’t always smile when she says this :-)]. But noooooo. So I now wonder if this playfully antagonistic dialog technique between Neli and I is such a good method to lighten up somewhat awkward situations after all. šŸ˜‰

And yes, we are still preoccupied with all the optimizations that we did not get time to implement with this particular system . Some other time we’ll write about how we tried [and failed, but we got more ideas] to maintain the coherence and lack of strain and harshness, while at the same time opening up the sound-stage and increasing the separation to suit Florian [who has agreed to write for the magazine] – and of course this was Sunday night… AFTER the show when we didn’t have to worry about ‘getting back to what sounded pretty good before’ if we really messed things up].

Anyway, everybody should congratulate Neli. Congratulations Neli!

in Acrolink / Audio Note / CES 2009 / High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / HRS / Nordost / Show Reports 0 comments