Nordost vs Shunyata speaker cables- and the winner is . .

The only other complaint is the somewhat  cheesy appearance to non-audiophiles- "you paid how much for this??"

why would you care what they look like to someone else? I think Nordost speaker cables look more or less distinct. 
With that said, I tried Tyr2 speaker cables and didn’t care for them. I had Tyr2 XLRs and Frey 2 power cords on my system at the time. There was no positive change brought by. They resulted in a smaller images in the soundstage, especially drums that ended up being almost unnaturally small. The sound was also fatiguing for long term listening. I ended up keeping my Audience FrontRow speaker cables. They give up nothing in resolution but sound more realistic. That’s in my system to my ears. 
If you like the Heimdall and they work in your system, awesome! 

Did you switch back and forth yourself or did you have someone else do it, without knowing which was which? Did you level match?

I have all Nordost cables  Heimdall interconnect and speaker cables. Red Dawn and Tyr power. At first I thought they were thin but I came to the realization that what I wasn’t hearing was all the noise my old cables added. 
Nordost doesn’t add anything, they transfer the signal cleanly. The more you spend the cleaner it is 

Has anyone by any chance compared the Frey 2 / Tyr 2 with the Alpha X? The reason I am interested in precisely these two (and also Siltech) is that my Gryphon amplifier requires speaker cables with low capacitance, but they must naturally also match my Maggie 3.7x.

@swede58 Tyr2 interconnects are excellent. I never compared them with Shinyata though. 
Recently I switched to Kimber KS1116 and in my system they are a better match.