Which
Shunyata power cord?
November
27, 2023
Marc,
I
hope you don’t mind me picking your brain, but from reading your posts you are most
likely The Audio Beat’s Shunyata expert.
I
am thinking of going down the Shunyata power-cable route, but I am somewhat confused. I
will start without a power conditioner. Shunyata say use XC cables only for power
conditioners and NR cable for everything else. Yet a couple of dealers I have spoken to
recommend XC for power amps and high-power-draw components I have CH Precision A1.5 and X1
driving Preamp/CD player (probably both quite power hungry). Do you have any
recommendations from your own experience?
Dominic
Bexon
I
had formulated an answer to you, but I then decided to write Grant Samuelsen at Shunyata
and get his input. I'm glad I did, because his answer is much more detailed than mine, and
I include it below instead of paraphrasing.
"We
recommend NR models for all electronics with the exception of the power distributor only
because putting an NR model there is entirely unnecessary -- not because it's not
high-current. There are no technical, or current-delivery differences between the XC and
NRv2 models with the exception of a small parallel filter that eliminates
power-supply-generated noise in the NRv2 models.
"There
are rare occasions where on pure-class-A-biased tube amps, for example, some prefer the XC
models. The differences are small and entirely subjective. The NRv2 filter eliminates some
power-supply-generated noise. On amps, this may confer a more sonorous, edgeless or
seamless sound. On some tube amps which already sound this way, certainly compared to
solid state, the XC, which has no filtering, might sound more direct and highlights
transients a bit more. The NRv2 circuit, to be clear, has no effect on current delivery,
so we are talking about increments in sound difference, not power delivery.
"Our
NRv2 and XC power cords use VTX-ag conductors, which is a silver center conductor
surrounded by an outer virtual-tube geometry. The NRv2 models sound very direct and
dynamic compared to our original NR models, which were all copper. With some tube amps
there are a few customers who have compared NRv2 to XC and prefer the XC. In our own
comparisons and in comparisons at dealers, we prefer the NRv2 models on solid-state amps
and many tube-amp models, even VTL, VAC, etc. ARC amps sound good with both, so I could
see going either way based on preference.
"On
Boulder, D'Agostino, Ayre, Constellation, Moon, Gryphon, Spectral and CH Precision
equipment, I would favor the NRv2 models because they are very well balanced and there are
no drawbacks to current delivery. The XC on those amps in our listening comparisons sound
slightly more dry and forward, maybe a little edgy. You could make the case for better
immediacy with XC, but this comes at the expense of a less sonorous or musically realistic
presentation with correct fundamentals of tone and texture. It's not a dramatic
difference, so we are talking about a small degree, but that's been my experience and that
shared by others that have done a lot of comparing." - Marc Mickelson
Added
to the list
November
1, 2023
Marc,
Please
add me to your e-mail list. Thanks.
David
J. Kersey
You've
been added. To join TAB's reader e-mail list and find out about new articles
first, send e-mail to rl@theaudiobeat.com.
-Marc Mickelson
