Maplin's 'Nikkai' interconnects......
 

Anyone have an opinion on this brand from Maplin? I bought one of their
Nikkai 2 phono-2 phono audio leads yesterday, as I never had enough on me
for the Thor version (the brand I normally buy). I have compared it to a
Thor 2 phono-2 phono I already had, and I can't honestly hear any drop in
performance. So, I'm just wondering what the rest of the Nikkai range is
like - SCART's, Coaxial, Optical for instance. I'm soon to buy a whole lot
of new AV cabling to set up a TV/DVD/VCR/Surround set-up in another room -
so I may buy Nikkai over Thor this time. Anyone have much of the stuff, and
can give me their impressions?

Thanks a lot.

"MisterChiversRegal" wrote in message
...
Anyone have an opinion on this brand from Maplin? I bought one of their
Nikkai 2 phono-2 phono audio leads yesterday, as I never had enough on me
for the Thor version (the brand I normally buy). I have compared it to a
Thor 2 phono-2 phono I already had, and I can't honestly hear any drop in
performance. So, I'm just wondering what the rest of the Nikkai range is
like - SCART's, Coaxial, Optical for instance. I'm soon to buy a whole lot
of new AV cabling to set up a TV/DVD/VCR/Surround set-up in another room -
so I may buy Nikkai over Thor this time. Anyone have much of the stuff,
and
can give me their impressions?

Thanks a lot.



i have a thor scart cable and a nikkai scart, both are damn good cables but
the shilding on the thor is excelent! because my equipment is all pretty
close together i find none shielded scarts pick up interference.
the thor is excelent at blocking this and the nikkai does a good job as
well. to be honest it's really hard to tell them apart, the thor cost me
£29.99 and the nakkai was £11.99.

at the end of the day it depends on the equipment being hooked up, my thor
is for my dvd player and the nikkai is on the sky box.

MisterChiversRegal wrote:
Anyone have an opinion on this brand from Maplin? I bought one of their
Nikkai 2 phono-2 phono audio leads yesterday, as I never had enough on me
for the Thor version (the brand I normally buy). I have compared it to a
Thor 2 phono-2 phono I already had, and I can't honestly hear any drop in
performance. So, I'm just wondering what the rest of the Nikkai range is
like - SCART's, Coaxial, Optical for instance. I'm soon to buy a whole lot
of new AV cabling to set up a TV/DVD/VCR/Surround set-up in another room -
so I may buy Nikkai over Thor this time. Anyone have much of the stuff, and
can give me their impressions?

Thanks a lot.

Whichever is cheapest. So long as the SCARTs have 21 pins connected, anyway.

-Vin

"ViNNY" wrote in message
...
MisterChiversRegal wrote:
Anyone have an opinion on this brand from Maplin? I bought one of their
Nikkai 2 phono-2 phono audio leads yesterday, as I never had enough on
me
for the Thor version (the brand I normally buy). I have compared it to a
Thor 2 phono-2 phono I already had, and I can't honestly hear any drop
in
performance. So, I'm just wondering what the rest of the Nikkai range is
like - SCART's, Coaxial, Optical for instance. I'm soon to buy a whole
lot
of new AV cabling to set up a TV/DVD/VCR/Surround set-up in another
room -
so I may buy Nikkai over Thor this time. Anyone have much of the stuff,
and
can give me their impressions?

Thanks a lot.

Whichever is cheapest. So long as the SCARTs have 21 pins connected,
anyway.


Well I'm certainly no golden eyes/ears, but I can tell the difference
between bog standard (non OFC, shielded, gold plated etc) SCART's and the
ones that are OFC, Shielded and gold plated - but I struggle to tell the
difference between all the ones that do have these features. I'm starting to
think that there is no difference between brands. But generic, in-the-box
leads are crap IMO.

MisterChiversRegal wrote:
"ViNNY" wrote in message
...
MisterChiversRegal wrote:
Anyone have an opinion on this brand from Maplin? I bought one of
their Nikkai 2 phono-2 phono audio leads yesterday, as I never had
enough on me for the Thor version (the brand I normally buy). I
have compared it to a Thor 2 phono-2 phono I already had, and I
can't honestly hear any drop in performance. So, I'm just wondering
what the rest of the Nikkai range is like - SCART's, Coaxial,
Optical for instance. I'm soon to buy a whole lot of new AV cabling
to set up a TV/DVD/VCR/Surround set-up in another
room -
so I may buy Nikkai over Thor this time. Anyone have much of the
stuff, and can give me their impressions?

Thanks a lot.

Whichever is cheapest. So long as the SCARTs have 21 pins connected,
anyway.


Well I'm certainly no golden eyes/ears, but I can tell the difference
between bog standard (non OFC, shielded, gold plated etc) SCART's and
the ones that are OFC, Shielded and gold plated - but I struggle to
tell the difference between all the ones that do have these features.
I'm starting to think that there is no difference between brands. But
generic, in-the-box leads are crap IMO.

Seconded.
There is a noticable improvement from a 99p scart to a quality £10 lead but
above that then I'm unconvinced of the benefits
--
Alex

Hermes: "We can't afford that! Especially not Zoidberg!"
Zoidberg: "They took away my credit cards!"

www.drzoidberg.co.uk
www.sffh.co.uk
www.ebayfaq.co.uk

Well I bought a Nikkai lead from Maplin, a 1.5m SCART-SCART, and I cannot
tell the difference between it and a Prowire Professional quality cable that
I already had, or the Thor ones. I think, for the price (14.99 for 1.5m),
they are fantastic. I will be buying more of this brand. They even have a
good locking grip on the socket to keep it stable in the connected
equipment's SCART socket - something Thor leads struggle to do because of
the fancy shmansy, heavy gunmetal 'heads'.

I would very much reccomend these cables to anyone. They are double
shielded, as opposed to quad shielded on other dearer ones, but I can tell
you from experience that this double shielding is more than adequate.

"MisterChiversRegal" wrote in message
...
Anyone have an opinion on this brand from Maplin? I bought one of their
Nikkai 2 phono-2 phono audio leads yesterday, as I never had enough on me
for the Thor version (the brand I normally buy). I have compared it to a
Thor 2 phono-2 phono I already had, and I can't honestly hear any drop in
performance. So, I'm just wondering what the rest of the Nikkai range is
like - SCART's, Coaxial, Optical for instance. I'm soon to buy a whole lot
of new AV cabling to set up a TV/DVD/VCR/Surround set-up in another room -
so I may buy Nikkai over Thor this time. Anyone have much of the stuff,
and
can give me their impressions?

Thanks a lot.



The truth is, all well designed cables will sound the same. Although the
comments about shielding are certainly true for video cables.

http://sound.westhost.com/cables-p2.htm

"Ken" wrote in message
...
"MisterChiversRegal" wrote in message
...
Anyone have an opinion on this brand from Maplin? I bought one of their
Nikkai 2 phono-2 phono audio leads yesterday, as I never had enough on
me
for the Thor version (the brand I normally buy). I have compared it to a
Thor 2 phono-2 phono I already had, and I can't honestly hear any drop
in
performance. So, I'm just wondering what the rest of the Nikkai range is
like - SCART's, Coaxial, Optical for instance. I'm soon to buy a whole
lot
of new AV cabling to set up a TV/DVD/VCR/Surround set-up in another
room -
so I may buy Nikkai over Thor this time. Anyone have much of the stuff,
and
can give me their impressions?

Thanks a lot.



The truth is, all well designed cables will sound the same. Although the
comments about shielding are certainly true for video cables.

http://sound.westhost.com/cables-p2.htm



Yes, I totally agree. I admit that I have been guilty of buying 'Hi-Fi
******' cables in the past, but now I know that once you get to that certain
point where you buy individual wire shielded, OFC, gold plated, 75ohm
characteristics etc...that there is no difference between brands. With AV
cables, when you hit the £15 for a SCART cable kind of price, with all the
above values, it does not matter if you spend £15, £40 or £80 - only a
'Hi-Fi ******' will tell you different. :)

I've had Thor SCART's and digital Coaxial cables, Monster and Kimber cables
etc...but I have now tested these against each other and against Maplin's
reasonably priced Nikkai 'Pure Connectivity' range, with a friend switching
between leads out of my view - and I could not tell which was which. The
only thing I could tell was when he switched to a bog-standard, in-the-box
SCART lead that came free with something or another (non-OFC, non-shielded,
non-gold plated etc). Some will argue that it depends on the quality of your
gear - but I have good equipment, and I can't see the difference between the
real 'pro' cables and the £15 Nikkai cables. A lesson learnt that will save
me money in the future, no doubt.

Oh, and some of the reviews of AV cables....with this kind of crap; "on
scenes with a dramatic contrast in colour, this cable really
shines...beautiful hues of primary colours are very pronounced... and the
blacks are truly black..."etc, is pure and utter crap. Did I miss something?
Did they get special eyes and ears when god dished them out, and we got the
inferior variety? I was once taken in by it all, not now though. It's all
just marketing hype and designed to relieve us of our cash. "Spend 10% of
the price of your gear on cabling" they say. Yeah right! They would tell you
that! For one reason and one reason only - to make more money!

Don't get me wrong, the bog-standard SCART leads and any cable that cost £3
in Argos is going to be vastly inferior to an individual wire shielded, OFC,
gold plated SCART or cable....but the difference between the brands that
*do* use these qualities is not there, not AFAIC anyway. I'm sure there will
be some who disagree - but it's their money to waste, who am I to argue? ;)

Regards. :)