Have a project right now to pull all that cloth wire out of a school in Cicero. Super difficult to specify on a drawing and difficult for a contractor to bid…but it’ll get done. The feeders are easy, the branch circuits are the difficult part.
Sheesh! That seems like a nightmare to me as a former Audio Custom Installer. Everywhere you go - totally random stuff. SO WISH there was a Scope you could use to see through walls…
Despite our being creeped out by cloth-covered wire…uhhh…the stuff has mostly worked for a century, give or take. hard to wrap my Modern head around that until I actually think about what one or the other wire is actually doing.
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The “Shmata Smegma V47” will be the Flagship of my new AC cable line, made from Vintage Wire Pulled from Century Old Chicago homes.
Just kidding everyone - I like wire, and think a lot of crazy things are being done with electricity these days.
Not kidding about that, as I think we lose track of the fact that we know about as much about electricity as we do about Dark Energy. Just sayin’.
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Hi Ron. I am curious, why would one choose the XC over the NC, on the Cable Company site I can’t see a definition of the difference between NC and XC other than a small price difference. Would an Alpha NR be better than an Alpha XC? Should the Sigma NC and XC cables be considered? I have a way more expensive Stealth 20 amp cable sitting in a box. I probably should compare it to the V1 Sigma I am currently using. I am sad that all my V1 Sigmas are now useless.
Hi Al
Shunyata differentiate the XC as specifically for high current delivery to conditioners, regenerators where the noise is supposed to be cleaned up. The NR continues to clean up noise at the cable, supposedly at the expense of a smidgen of peak current delivery. But who knows?
If you really want to join me in feeling a little nauseous, I borrowed my friend’s Audience AU24SX power cable. Jeepers it’s nice. Why do I do this to myself?
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So in my case where at full load I am seeing less than 1000 watts I could consider either an NR or an XC? Hmmmmm.
I have just tried a bunch of cables to feed my P20 (see my recent thread on cable shoutout).
Bottom line, in my system, so far, from best to worst:
1 wireworld platinum Electra
2 shunyata Sigma v2 nr
3 Audioquest dragon hc
The shunyata nr was slightly behind in bass and dynamics compared to the wireworld.
I am getting a shunyata sigma v2 xc for trial in the coming days.
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Going back to this 15A, 20A thing, for once I can feel smug being in the UK. Because we have 240V, current load is a lot less and we just have 1 type of 13A socket that is good for everything except 30A points for electric kitchen ovens. 
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The end that plugs into the wall is they same here, it’s the part that goes into the audio gear that is 15/20 amp.
Looking at the IEC socket specs, the vertical bar pins ones are rated 10A, horizontal bar pins are 16A. I think this must be for American market mainly as 10A @ 240V is 2.4KW which is enough for most kit
Edit: Sorry, I’m showing my age now. It used to be 240V but dropped ro 220~230V some decades ago to unify with the Europeans
I don’t really know what you are talking about now. I will simmer down now.
Hi Al, yes, interpreting the meaning of each others text can be confusing at times. You were commenting on different iec plug terminations, and I was just saying that it’s a pain as it not really required when you have higher voltage mains.
I see now. So when you get gear made for Eurospec it is typically 240V and always uses the same connector on both ends?
Yes, even the uk P20 comes with just a standard 10A iec socket
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Since they provide no data to explain the differences, XC to NR, I just take it as a wild ass guess.
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Maybe I’m just oversimplifying but according to their web site: the XC line is intended for power conditioners and amplifiers while the NR is intended for source components including preamps.
Am I missing the point here?
That would explain the lack of dynamics of the sigma nr v2 in my system, especially with the P20 delivering around a 1000W continuously.
The nr might work better in less power hungry systems, but I clearly need to try the xc.
Will be hard to beat the ww platinum Electra, though, which was Fremer’s reference for a long time, but we will see. They cost about the same, so SQ will be the only deciding factor.
To be continued.
Their website saves the XC is the same as NR but without any noise filtering as the assumption is the regenerator has already done that. So use NR if not using regenerator, use XC if you are.
I have owned and enjoyed Shunyata products in years gone by. These included interconnects, speaker cables, power cords and a power conditioner. Those were the times when their naming systems/nomenclature centered around astronomy, mythology, snakes and the occasional Greek letter. Simpler times I believe because I’m now finding it difficult to distinguish their various product levels and version numbers.
Just an observation and not a knock on the product which is even better now than then. It’s just I’m having a hard time telling them apart.
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Recently a friend of mine lent me a V2 XC and recommended to be used as power cable for my P15. I tried and immediately bought it. It really improved P15 to next level. Voices from my speakers sounds very tremendous. Much better than previous one. However, the previous one is just a very low level power cable. But 3 days later, another friend came to my room and he thought my voice sounded a little bit low resolution. As I guessed it would be due to the XC has not NR technology, I connected a NBS black label II+ to XC through a connector. Then miracle came out, the voice became very clear. It looks P15 can’t handle too much noise in the current and a sigma V2 NR should be more suitable for it.
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