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8 January 2025
Introduction: The Whole Nine Yards / A Clear Path to Sonic Perfection
After welcoming Nordost's Alex and JC, they descended into the belly of our longhouse to meticulously rewire our entire system with their new Leif 3 cabling: power cords, speaker cables, jumpers, interconnects, Ethernet cables – the whole nine yards or more.
Leif 3 replaces the old line after nearly a decade and a half. The range comprises White Lightning, Purple Flare, Blue Heaven and Red Dawn. All lines except White Lightning offer a complete loom for decking out your system with the same family of cables. Nordost calls Leif 'entry-level' despite a two-meter pair of humble White Lightning coming in above £500. But take a look at the cost of their flagship Odin cables and you can understand the realms this Nordic titan positions itself.
Nordost's Product Line: The New Leif 3 Descendants
This session focused on the Leif 3 power and speaker cables. Our Ayre Acoustics pre/power, Chord Electronics, and B&W setup had been overhauled with an entire set of Red Dawn (the guys clearly drawing their big guns early), all plugged into their new QBASE MkIII (more on that later).
One discernible feature of the Leif 3 power cables is the increase in gauge over the previous incarnation. For example, the Leif 3 Red Dawn Power Cord uses 3 x 12 AWG stranded OFC – the last version used 14 AWG. With experience, heavier gauges tend toward a more assertive sound.
Although available in varying lengths, Nordost recommends 2 meters as the optimum (close to the commonly accepted 1.8 meters). Moreover, if you run two mono-blocs, Nordost advocates keeping your power cable lengths consistent – something you may be used to with a pair of speaker cables for timing and impedance balancing. We were intrigued this is true for power cords, but a guess is that this evens the AC flowing into the two channels.
Product Line: The New Leif 3 Descendants
The Leif 3 speaker cables' gauge goes the opposite way – the new Red Dawn Speaker Cable uses 22 x 24 AWG versus the previous 20 x 26 AWG – thicker cores, more of them. The cables' cores use solid, silver-plated OFC. Solid core avoids microphonic noise that stranded cores collect from friction; Nordost believes this is audible in high-end systems. The increased number of cores gets better signal transfer along the cable since high-frequency sound travels more on the surface than the centre of the core (you may know this as 'skin effect'). Plugs are soldered on (crimping is unsuitable on solid core conductors because of copper's high plasticity).
If you're familiar with Nordost cables, you'll be familiar with their sassy ribbon structure, which makes your system resemble an unwrapped Christmas present. This design controls the performance with 'mechanical tuning' – measuring the spacing between individual cores for precision performance – running each core side-by-side. Nordost's characteristic low capacitance, resulting in a less bloated sound, owes much to the ribbon design.
It's a dark art, the audiophile world, and Nordost drives a lot of audio-lore into their brand. For example, would you like your old Nordost cables to be recut? Nay! To Nordost, this be mortal sin – a mere cut-and-shut job – relinquishing Odin's welcome to Valhalla's majestic halls. But they are happy to forge new ones, for you . . . for a small price.
Test: Unleashing the Wrath
Alex and JC made a top-down assault, lacing up our system entirely with the top of the Leif 3 range, Red Dawn, before demonstrating Blue Heaven and Purple Flare. Our choice of music this time was the tenderly titled 'Romance' by Fontaines DC; but the sentiment of this love song was more akin to the wrath of Norse warriors charging intently to their doom – a menacing piece to test the Nordost mettle (and metal – ha-ha!).
The sound was exemplary Nordost – clean, open, dynamically layered. What defined these Red Dawn cables was their delicacy and light handling without losing control across the frequency range. Not a particularly muscular cable (they were in no way heavy-handed with the music), but the Red Dawn loom captured the drama of the Fontaines DC track (you wouldn't want to hear a track like this on a clumsy setup). This delicate touch acquaints us with the gloom of the affected guitar riff, flecked with the resonant timbre of the shakers and sinister glassy notes. The singer's textured vocals articulated the emaciated lyrics, leading us someplace . . . someplace devastating. By the time we found out where that place was, the sound dropped us into the song's doomed conclusion. There was no going back.
Yet we did. The plan was to work down through the range, so Alex swapped out the preamp's power cord for Blue Heaven. Changing this single cable lost us a little texture on the voice, and the sound rounded off but the soundstage became more assertive at the midrange. We agreed this was a deviation from the typical Nordost character, but the Blue Heaven has its place, albeit an anomaly in the range.
Power Cord Comparison: The Impact of Precision
Next, Purple Flare – now available with C13 and C7 ('figure 8') connectors – replaced the preamp's power cord. Intriguingly, the delicate touch lost with the Blue Heaven returned. While the sound was less smooth, it returned to Nordost's characteristic air and clarity. The Purple Flare's lower gauge, to be expected, had less scale.
We concluded the power cord test by returning to the Red Dawn. Yes, the drama of Romance, with all its menace, was restored. More rounded, more scaled. The benefit was clear.
Speaker Cable Analysis: From Entry to Excellence
Speaker cables were next on trial. JC proposed stepping down to White Lightning to hear what could be achieved at 'entry-level'. We still heard that trademark Nordost clarity but a leaner presentation. From a lower gauge model, that is to be expected. Stepping up to Purple Flare was closer to Red Dawn – greater soundstage, more body, richer texture. But returning to Red Dawn cables restored the satisfying drama to the music.
And for the encore, The QBASE MkIII: Power Distribution Redefined
Alex had another card to play: the QBASE MkIII Distribution unit – specifically its Primary Earth' outlet. Nordost uses star-earth topology, connecting all outlets from a central point. And all outlets, except Primary Earth, have lifted impedance. So electronic noise (EMI and RFI) takes the easiest path to ground out to the mains via the Primary Earth outlet. Crucially, Alex stressed plugging your integrated or preamplifier into the Primary Earth outlet.
Using this socket gives soundstage and dynamics, but by swapping the preamplifier to the 'secondary' sockets, the sound flattened (so use those for the other components). This is because your components dump their noise, via signal ground to the preamp. Using the path of least resistance, the Primary Earth drains the signal contamination away to the mains. Additionally, this gives each connected component unhindered power from the wall.
Conclusion: Absence makes the heart grow
It is fair to say we heard what JC and Alex wanted us to hear: that, going up through the range, cables have less effect on the sound. In other words, their goal is to let the signal pass unabated through the cables. Nordost does not subscribe to the bright/warm balancing – they aim their products at already well-balanced, high-end systems. Although some of us like our cables to fine-tune our sound, clarity is Nordost's sole objective.
Leif means heir or descendent. Comparing the old versus the new we hear a smoothness and depth akin to a model jump showing that third-generation Leif wants to lead us closer to Valhalla. It was obvious JC and Alex were wholeheartedly invested in the items Nordost fashions. Possibly to the point of dying with a meter of Supreme Reference in their hands, crying the name of their god, "Odin!", before going forth to their silver-plated ends.