[b]I borrowed a Nordost Shiva..[/b] ..off a friendly dealer and I've spent a good few hours today and yesterday listening to it. Given all the recent kerfuffle here and much purple prose in HiFi+, I thought I'd see what the fuss was about. Some of the time I simply listened, then I spent an hour or so on a completely unscientific (so don't start on the methodology..) comparison against a Kimber high current powercord. Took a number of tracks with which I'm very very familiar and simply listened to each with each cable - about a 20 second lag to swap and play. Kit is Krell SACD Standard, Michell Orca and Alecto amps, B&W Nautilus 802s, with VdH Furst and Trichord Pulsewire interconnects and VdH Revelation speaker cable. An RA powerblock with Kimber lead from the mains was already in place - used the Shiva from the powerblock into the Krell. Individual test tracks used were: Master Musicians of Joujouka - Taksim – a Moroccan oud solo Smoke City - Giulietta Suzanne Vega (Cerwin's sister?) - the Queen and the Soldier Royksopp – the one off the advert.. Nirvana – teen spirit Given the recent animated threads on cables, I thought I'd write one review for each camp. One of them is true (to me) - you decide which!! A The lavishness of the HF+ initial review had intrigued me but the constant advertorial style plugging in subsequent issues had made me very sceptical. Although having Kimber cables (some kosher, some home brewed) I've never honestly found night and day differences from them. I stuck the Shiva in and played without any critical listening – and was brought up short by the fact that there was an obvious difference. I was listening to a tabla track off Master Musicians – and there was considerably more bounce and impact to the sound. I went through a whole bunch of familiar CDs and heard a positive improvement on most. Spent a day listening to stuff before wondering whether I was kidding myself into hearing what I wanted to hear; which is when I started the swapping. On Taksim, the Shiva sounds more vibrant – literally; there is a resonance and bite rings that was not there with the Kimber. Smoke City's Giulietta brought a more relaxed and natural quality to Nina Miranda's trouser-disturbingly breathy Brazilianisms, plus more clarity to the background detail (parrots, actually) – the Kimber had a touch of resonant bloom to the voice that could grate at times. On Suzanne Vega there wasn't much in it on the voice, but the Shiva gave better distinction of the instrument melody lines. Nirvana – Kimber had a bit more body but the Shiva had more slam – couldn't decide which I preferred. Royksopp – more tangible deepest bass line on the Shiva; forget about listening, I had my hand on the sofa and could actually feel stronger vibrations. It's not a miracle – some rough CDs still sound rough – but there are definite improvements here. Will I keep it? You bet. I've tweaked with the best of them but mostly been disappointed in the scale of difference – but to my ears, this is the scale of change that you get from a component change rather than a bit of snake oil. B My system sounded excellent with the Kimber cable in – and continued to do so with the Shiva. When I first put it in I thought I could hear more bass and better thwack/slam/impact, but grew to think that this was wishful thinking and I was just listening myself into agreement with the HF+ reviewer. When I started swapping around and trying hard to hear and note down differences, I came unstuck – there really wasn't a difference to be heard. What I thought was a difference – for example a detail I'd never heard before on a particular track – turned out to be present when I swapped over too. I think when we put new components or tweaks in, we listen harder and more analytically than usual, so are more likely to find differences or come across unnoticed details – but once noticed they can be reproduced in the 'old state'. In summary – can I hear a difference? Not really. Would I shell out £220 for it? Not a hope – I'd rather plough it into CdWow. Thank you dealer, but you can take it back.
