NORDOST White Lightning

TR19.11.2011

Speaker cables

The Nordost’s ribbons have specific assets and specific drawbacks. The White Lightning is snow white which looks quite trendy. As the outer ‘jacket’ is plastic you do not have to be afraid that the cables could become dirty over a time – a cleaning cloth will make them shiny again.

Function and form

78%

Ease of use

32%

Sound

88%

Appearance

The White Lightning does not use strands. The conductors are 10 solid core OFC copper wires in FEP and are silver-plated. The conductors are manufactured by Nordost in-house in a rather complicated production process.

The White Lightning is a directional cable so the signal should flow in the direction of small arrows. Nordost uses Z-plugs to terminate their cables; those are lightweight hollow bananas made of a thin and flexible metal foil (beryllium and copper combination) that expand inside an amplifier and speaker terminals in ‘springy’fashion.

Both the Nordost cables in our test, the White Lightning and the Purple Flare, are our winners in a convenience competition: with the bend radius of only 10mm they can be easily twisted and turned and if you want to run them under a carpet or behind furniture you can. Just be careful in case you need to leave them on a busy floor not to step onto them.

Bass management

Weight

Slam

Articulation

This review is a part of The Low and Mid-tier Speaker Cables Megatest that includes 18 different speaker cables. The pilot article is available at SPECIAL EDITION REVIEWS section of Audiodrom.

Clarity & delicacy

Detail

Air

Transparency

The introduction fanfares of George Benson’s White Rabbit reveal a Nordost cable in a minute: the White Lightnings render the brass in a typical blazing fashion that is so synonymous with Nordost. I was also expecting the sound to be ultra pure, ultra fast and ultra precise but, untypically, the cable was much closer to the sound of the Audioquest Rocket 33, that is fluid, warm and very musical.

The White Lightning does not bath the recordings in a golden light (like the Audioquest), rather it is opening windows for daylight to come. I believe this is more correct way to interpret CD discs, but I have to admit it induces less emotions at the same time. More precision, less joy, I would say.

Tonal accuracy

Timbre

Dynamics

Temporal resolution

The soundstaging of the White Lightning is a tad more compact than with the reference, the Krautwire Fractal, so the chairs of the players of the orchestra were closer to each other in Star Wars’ The Arrival at Naboo. However, I was pleased with how continuous the soundstage was – no breaking apart to layers or events did occur.

Spatial resolution

Holography

Soundstage width

Soundstage depth

To sum it up the White Lightning is a good cable, not exceptional in its price category, however. Should you want to get a flavor of the real Nordost sound, you have to reach deeper in your pocket.

Price as reviewed:7 200,- Kč

Recommended resellers

Perfect Sound Group, Praha, tel. +420 722 960 690

Manufacturer's website: http://www.nordost.com

Associated components

Sources: Primare CD32, Luxman D-05 and Accuphase DP-510
Amplifiers: Primare I32, Luxman L-590AX a Accuphase E-560
Interconnects and speaker cables: Krautwire Fractal, Cardas Clear, Homegrown Audio DNA
Loudspeakers: Audio Physic Virgo V, Dynaudio Confidence C1 and Xavian Giulia, Chario Constellation, Xavian Preludio, Revel Ultima Studio2, B&W 805 Diamond and Atohm G 1.0
Power conditioning: Nordost Thor (modified), Snakeblock, Nordost Valhalla

Gallery

39%

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