Nordost Leifstyle 2 Flat Speaker Cables

Nordost Leifstyle 2 Flat Speaker Cable

NOTE: This product has a typical lead time of 2-4 weeks.

Nordost’s most iconic products are our revolutionary, flat speaker cables. Due to the intricate extrusion process employed during fabrication, Nordost is the only audio cable manufacturer with the ability to achieve this unique cable design. The flat nature of Nordost’s speaker cables results in a far superior performance level than that of the commonly seen “round” variety. Nordost’s comprehensive range of loudspeaker cables take every factor into consideration: transfer speed, strand interaction, “skin effect”, and signal loss. The result is a line of fast, low-mass cables with low resistance and impedance that cannot be replicated or out-performed by any other brand in the industry.

Manufacturer's Details:

Nordost entered the hifi audio market with its groundbreaking flat speaker cable design. 2 Flat was one of the first cables to use the FEP extrusion technique that not only revolutionised the look, but the performance of speaker cables.

The geometrical and mechanical stability of this cable, comprised of two rectangular, solid core OFC conductors, ensures the low inductance and capacitance necessary to create truly state-of-the-art cables. The excellent sound quality and low signal loss of 2 Flat make it ideal for both hifi and home theatre applications, where long runs for surround channel speakers are required to be discrete, yet offer high performance. Additionally, 2 Flat Speaker Cables’ extreme durability and thin construction (thinner than a credit card!) makes it the perfect choice for under-carpet installation. In fact, not only can 2 Flat be installed under-carpet, but it can be pushed under baseboards, cut into walls and then seamlessly spackled over and even buried underground without incurring any sound degradation.

5 Reasons to use flat speaker cables:

Since Nordost introduced their first cable, the Flatline gold in 1992, there has been one question in particular that has been asked constantly: Why use flat speaker cable? Well, we have been able to breakdown this answer into 5 clear and concise reasons…

1. Decreases Resistance While Still Eliminating Strand Interaction

In order to make a quality audio cable, one of many goals manufacturers need to achieve is low resistance. Resistance is like a sponge, soaking up the energy you need for your components to run as intended. In order to lower resistance, we not only increase the gauge size of the conductors, but we increase the number of conductors themselves. However, simply bunching these conductors together causes another problem—strand interaction. Each conductor produces a magnetic field, which attracts the energy carried from each surrounding strand, causing information to jump from conductor to conductor. This both slows transaction speed and causes a loss of vital information along the way. When conductors are separated, as they are in a flat cable design, the harmful effects of strand interaction are minimised, while, at the same time, the desired low resistance is achieved.

2. Optimises Mechanical Resonances

Every material has its own specific optimal resonance, or speed at which it vibrates. This is the same for the conductors that make up your speaker cable. If the conductors are too close together (or worse…touching), they have a damping effect on one another, negatively impacting their mechanical resonances. With flat speaker cables, more attention can be paid to the layout and spacing of each individual conductor, giving the material enough room to ensure that they are able to take advantage of their natural resonances. Additionally, when the conductors are not intertwined and wound up in each other, they can be cut at specific mechanically tuned lengths that reduce internal microphony and high frequency impedance resonance.

3. Decreases Skin Effect

Self-inductance of cables creates a phenomenon where high frequency signals travel to the surface of a conductor, rather than the centre. This raises the resistance of cables at those affected frequencies, making it harder to transmit high frequencies than low ones. This problem is known as “skin effect”. Although it may seem to follow reason that constructing speaker cables with stranded conductors would solve this problem, when stranded conductors are bundled together, touching one another, the bundle acts as one conductor and so the skin effect remains unchanged. In a flat speaker cable design, conductors are side-by-side (and in Nordost’s case they are even separated by extruded FEP insulation) instead of sandwiched together. Since the conductors are not touching and acting as one, high frequency resistance due to skin effect is minimised.

4. Reduces Physical Surface Contact

Cables are negatively impacted by the electric static stored in floors. When there is interaction between a cable and the surface that it rests upon, the capacitance of the cables rises. However, when you use a flat construction, speaker cables have the ability to stand vertically when placed in your home sound system. When placed vertically, there is minimal physical surface contact between the floor and the cable itself, which offers a significant improvement over a round cable design.

5. Convenience

Although this reason may not seem important due to a lack of scientific jargon, sometimes convenience makes the difference you need. Flat cables are more flexible and, surprise surprise, flatter than round cables. This makes for more installer friendly options, especially if you are running your cables in-wall or under your carpet.