One of the things I love about Brooklyn is that there's always something fun to do here. In the midst of a New York winter, I can pop my pickup truck into four-wheel drive and slice through the blackened slush that covers our notoriously decrepit highway system, while the arrival of spring makes me yearn to run the gauntlet of weirdoes and felons along Coney Island's famous boardwalk (one of the few neighborhoods where crime actually continues to rise) as I make my annual pilgrimage to the City Aquarium. And regardless of the season, there are countless hours of pleasure to be had chasing radio frequency interference away from one's audio system.

I'm kidding, of course. Despite the unavoidable big-city problems, there's nowhere I'd rather live. But I'm serious about the RFI. Forget about unshielded cable: even the most heavily shielded designs inevitably become antennae in this high-signal-strength area. Last fall, tired of hearing me moan about the noise problems in our borough, fellow Brooklynite and Fi contributor Steve Guttenberg finally shared his secret weapon: Nirvana cable. And though I loathe writing wire reviews, Nirvana interconnects and speaker cable have wrought such an improvement in my system that I feel compelled to share them with you.

Let's face it, many aspiring audio manufacturers enter the cable market due to the low startup costs: find a wire drawing facility, buy a couple of spools, some connectors, crimpers, solder, and an iron, and you're in business! Nirvana's Steven Creamer, on the other hand, has spent the entirety of his professional life dealing with the nature of conductivity. A high-voltage cable splicer by trade, Creamer is one of only several hundred people in the entire country certified to perform complex repair and maintenance functions on underground electrical lines. Dealing with lethal currents--many of which are in excess of 235,000 volts--has provided a rare opportunity to examine certain inexplicable anomalies which, to some degree, hinder the performance of all cable systems.

An inveterate entrepreneur, Creamer spent his spare time designing foolproof digital filters and line conditioners for the banking industry, where a single power glitch can result in financial catastrophe. Eventually, he utilized similar technologies to build interconnects for a few audiophile friends, and was soon overwhelmed by demand. Audiophile music labels--Chesky Records and ma Recordings among them--have wired their studios with Nirvana, and OEM business is booming.

What's so special about Nirvana products! In a word, everything. In a manner representative of the best high-end components, even the smallest design and construction decisions were the result of rigorous scientific reasoning. Let's start by examining the basic conductive elements:

While most cables attempt to minimize noise by shunting it to a heavy grounded shield, Creamer rejects this approach, claiming it masks treble detail. Instead, he has developed a self-canceling strand geometry. Each positive and negative interconnect "leg" is comprised of 95 individually insulated conductors, which vary both in gauge and winding pattern. Essentially a Litz wire for the lunatic fringe, this configuration eliminates noise between strands, and mitigates both skin effect and eddy currents. The speaker cable boasts a similar topology, but uses a full FOUR TIMES the number of conductors...no snake oil here!

Cable geometry--the physical relationship between positive and negative legs--has been tuned to minimize capacitive effects. Due to the spacing and winding patterns chosen for the two conductors, Nirvana achieves a remarkable 18.2 picofarad-per-meter interconnect capacitance, and a vanishingly low 11.5 pf/m measurement for the speaker cable. Since braided shields are susceptible to vibration and may therefore generate triboelectric noise, a patented helical shielding system provides superior interconnect quieting. Speaker cables are clad with an amorphous Teflon inner sheath for maximum insulation. A variety of proprietary and laboratory grade polyurethane compounds jacket both the individual conductors and completed wire assemblies, while additional synthetic and natural damping materials prevent mechanical energy from degrading electrical performance. All crimped and soldered connections exceed mil-spec, and are executed by military certified technicians. WBT, Neutrik, and Amphenol terminations are used exclusively.

After years of wrestling with stiff, obstinate wires. I found that installing the Nirvanas was refreshingly hassle-free. With their soft polyurethane insulation and angel-hair-thin conductors, these cables are as flexible as a contortionist, able to snake around comers and behind equipment racks better than any other product I've tried. Still, once hookup had been completed and the evaluations began, I became aware of something even more important: my system's noise floor had been dramatically lowered.

Anyone who ever used the high filter on his old receiver knows how easy it is to eliminate noise. The problem, of course, is that you also censor much of the music. That's the way it's always been with cabling: choose a model with a rolled top end to banish high frequency hash, or one whose extended trebles were often accompanied by grain or harshness. Not so with the Nirvanas, whose near-silent background actually enhances upper octave performance, enabling air, ambiance and instrumental decay to unfold in all their naturally detailed glory, seemingly for the first time. The spatial implications of this design are profound. Descriptions of the airy spaces which surround and separate the musicians inevitably border on hyperbole.

With a properly miked live recording, such as The Minnesota Orchestra's Exotic Dances from the Opera [Reference Recordings RR-71CD], each instrumentalist is presented with newfound individuality, while at the same time a greater sense of cohesion unites the performers to the concert hall.

As Fi Jazz Editor, Brooklyn resident (yeah, another one!), and Nirvana fan Fred Kaplan observed, tonal colors are impeccably resolved. As a result, the string tone and cavity resonance of the four guitars played on Gitarr-Kvartetten [Opus 3 CD 7810] are portrayed with such clarity that the differences between them are more immediately apparent. The same applies to voices. Although I've auditioned Trio [Warner 9 25491-2] hundreds of times, Parton, Ronstadt, and Harris' unique timbral personalities suddenly became easier to distinguish.

Shall I tell you tales of honeyed highs, luscious midrange, and authoritative bass! Sure, the Nirvana will let you hear such things, assuming other parts of your system possess these characteristics. Although certain manufacturers -MIT, Transparent, and Monster among them --now offer products which electrically compensate for problems elsewhere in the playback chain, the role of high-end wiring has always been that of a conduit, allowing the signal to pass through without changing it in any way. If you demand absolute transparency from an audio cable, rejoice, your search ends here; on the other hand, those of you who expect a component to double as a spin doctor should keep looking.

Hey, everyone needs a little romance in his life, and even some devoted users have mourned Nirvana's lack of euphony. In home theater applications, for example, where the tonal balance of most recordings and much equipment is far from ideal, the Transparent Music Link Ultra interconnect and Ultra Bi-Cable speaker cable will provide a more enjoyable and involving multi-channel experience. But in the rarefied times of a high-end system, no cable has allowed the rest of my components to so positively assert their own personalities. If you believe that a cable should speak the truth rather than interpret it, you simply will not find a more eloquent spokesperson.

MANUFACTURER:
Nirvana Audio
P O, Box 1053 Valley Stream. NY 11582
Phone/Fax: 516-285-1950

DESIGNER
Stephen Creamer

S-L Series interconnect: $795/1.5 meter pair
S-L Speaker cable: $1095/2 meter pair

Associated Equipment:
CD Players: Parasound C/DP-1OW, Marantz CD-63SE Pre-amps: Plinius M-12, Conrad Johnson PV-12L PoverAmps: Plinius SA-100, Virtual Image Stereo-Bloc: 20/40, Conrad-]ohnson MF-2300A, ATI AT-1506 Speakers. Gallo Acoustics Nucleus Solo. Gallo Acoustics Nucleus Reference, Aerial Acoustics Model 10T, Mission 751.KEF RDM one

JULY/AUG.1997

Fi:The Magazine of Music and Sound

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