Description

QED XT5 Power Cable

QED XT5 power cable utilises the acclaimed X-Tube technology of QED’s award-winning loudspeaker cable ranges and applies it to the specific requirements of a mains power cable.

QED has created a ground-breaking power cable that delivers clean, stable current to audio equipment so that it can perform to its maximum potential. QED achieved this by deploying its usual combination of through research and world-class engineering,

Having played a large part in the creation of the very first specialist speaker cables and with over 47 years of unrivalled engineering excellence and expertise in the fields of hi-fi, home cinema cables and connectivity, no other company has demonstrated such relentless dedication to research and development combined with analytical listening tests.

The quality of mains power driving hi-fi equipment can have a profound effect on sonic performance. So, having achieved great and award-winning results with its most recent speaker cables and analogue interconnects, QED’s engineers have now applied their unique methodology to power cables.

This single-minded determination to liberate the performance of hi-fi electronics of all kinds has resulted in XT5 – a mains cable that sets entirely new standards of performance at the price.

QED’s imaginative thinking and enormous amount of attention paid to the materials and geometry of power cables has resulted in XT5 more effectively regulating current low. In a drive to minimise the degrading ‘proximity effect’ created as current density accumulates in the conductors nearest to each other, QED has applied its X-Tube technology first developed for its award-winning range of loudspeaker cables.

X-Tube technology

The braided individual cores in the live and neutral conductors are made small enough to resist eddy currents from adjacent cores, and as a consequence do not contribute to the ‘proximity effect’. The carefully calculated twist-rate of the individual strands ensures no two conductors are parallel for more than a few millimetres, furthering promoting even current flow at any and all frequencies. The separate bundles are individually isolated using K130PVC (to stabilise current capacitance and to exceed international safety standards), and cable inductance is controlled by giving the entire arrangement a hollow LDPE core.

Ferrite insulation

To combat the corruption of the domestic mains supply, particularly by radio frequency noise injected into the supply by computer equipment, XT5 uses a ferrite-impregnated inner jacket, effectively wrapping the X-Tube cores in an impenetrable blanket of radio silence. Absorbing high-frequency noise signals in this way has already proved wildly successful in QED’s award-winning Audio 40 range of analogue and digital interconnects (with which XT5 is, of course, completely compatible).

Complete practicality

XT5 is designed to be as thin and flexible, and thus practical, as possible. Only the live and neutral cores have been given the X-Tube treatment described above – the earth core (required only under fault conditions) is left in a conventional geometry. And because X-Tube geometry enables the whole cross-sectional area of the cable to be kept to a tidy 1.5 mm sq, XT5 is supremely flexible and usefully slim despite its audiophile potential.

Just listen

XT5’s numerous technological highlights help it perform brilliantly,, and we’re convinced it represents amazing value for money. The easiest way for you to understand what we mean is to hear it in action for yourself – we’re confident you’ll prefer it to any alternative power cable at anything like the price.

Specifications

• Conductor type: X-Tube
• Metallurgy: 99.999% oxygen-free copper
• Cross-sectional area: 1.5 mm sq
• Ferrite jacket: 10% Zn/Mn
• Capacitance: 98 pF/m
• Inductance: 0.52 μH/m
• Loop resistance: 0.026 ohm/m
• Dielectric strength: 2 kV (ac for 15 mins)
• Complies with: EN50525; EN60320; EN60884
• Outer jacket: Black Pearl
• Nominal outside diameter: 11 mm
• Plugs: UK – MK Tough Plug 655 blk
• Connector: MK IEC C13 794

“A high quality cable that proves to be a worthwhile investment for any audio system…Well-made and flexible mains cable that delivers on its promise.”

Neville Roberts, Dec 2020