The Anti Cable

[royalty]

I did a search of the forums to see if anything was posted about this but I could find nothing so I am going to pose this question. I recently was on Audiogon and I saw these Anti-cables. There are ICs and speaker wire and some other stuff they sell and they are around 10 dollars/ foot. The seller who makes them claims that they got the Absolute Sound Editors Choice award for best cables for the money or something like that. His site and reviews and feedback all are very good. What I was wondering was if anyone had any info or experience with these. I am considering getting some because I dont really want to spend alot on cables, and if they are what they say they are then for the money I believe they would be a great buy. Opinions.....

[Osarion]

BigMac just sold a pair on here maybe shoot him a PM if nobody else can answer your questions. http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?t=86101

[Flash21]

I have heard the Anti Cable (speaker cable)...personally I didn't like them. They have some strong points, but to me they were too strident and it seemed like all the ambience ("room noise") was missing. I strongly preferred the Analysis Plus Oval Nine we were comparing to...a more expensive cable and two very different designs, to be sure.

But some people swear by them...

[Zero]

I ran some Anti Cable stuff in the past. I walked away with the impression that they are highly inconsistent performers. In some systems - notably those consisting of British components, I found that the anti-cables lean and mean character worked well. On other systems however, particularly "tell it like it is" solid state gear or even on a variety of low cost tube products, I found the wires to sound quite bad.

The good news is that they are cheap enough to try out without breaking the bank, so I'd encourage you to check em' out should you be able to swing the purchase. I believe Paul offers a 30 day trial period on em'.. From my experience, if they work well... you'll likely be one of those raving about their performance. If not... well, you know how that story goes...

[BigMac]

When I had my anticables hooked up this is what I had in my system at the time. I had these cables hooked up to the amps at various times. These cables really seemed to like Adcom. Other than the amps listed I also tried them on the Adcom 545 and the 5802. The sound when hooked up to anything Adcom was a match made in heaven.

Pioneer 1018 receiver
Marantz DV-6600 universal player
Adcom 535II amp
Luxman M113/117
Polk Monitor 10b speakers

Very neutral cable that does not add or take away anything from the music. The one tip I can give you though is if you buy some make sure you twist them together. When connecting them to your amp/recvr and speakers make sure to really tighten them down. I had spades on the pair I bought and at first they sounded really bad because they were not tight enough. I had them finger tight but that was not good enough. Then after reading a few tips on them I saw where you had to really crank down on tightening them. Once I did that they sounded completely different.

I mentioned that they are very neutral and that is true mostly. I actually found these to be on the warm side of neutral. What I mean is that with the same components listed above, I used some ofc copper 14 gauge speaker wire. The sound was ok at best with bass being nice and controlled, mids were kinda grainy,and the highs were almost painful (I have the original tweets in the M10b). Once I hooked the anticables up everything kind of fell into place. No loss of bass and actually made it sound much more lifelike. Mids sounded nice and clean with voices and piano sounding pretty natural. The biggest improvement was in the highs. Highs now sounded much more natural and the cables tamed the harshness as well. Made for very enjoyable long listening sessions.

The one thing about these cables that I did not really care for was shaping them. These cables are not your regular limp speaker wire. This stuff you have to contort to make it work. Shaping them takes a little while and did make me frustrated a few times but after that initial go with them it was worth the extra trouble in the end.

[royalty]

Thanks for all the info. With my situation, these cables seem like they would be a good fit for me. I will most likely try them out

[skipf]

You can make them yourself for much less than $10/ft. They are made from motor winding wire.

[F1nut]

They are made from motor winding wire.

Yep.

[dorokusai]

The worst wire I've used to date.

[NotaSuv]

Works great for hanging bird feeders from trees............

[Zero]

I bought a spool of 16 gauge magnet wire on ebay for about 10 bucks a couple of years ago. I still regret it.