Anti-Cables on their way/have arrived

[LeRoy]

First and foremost I have to give a great deal of praise for the excellent customer service provided to me by the entire A/C staff. My order inquiries, processing, and return of goods was handled by a great deal of courtesy and professionalism.

With regard to my experience with A/C- I wound up returning the 10ft pair of speaker wire and both pairs of I.C's. Even though Paul S. was willing to take back the 6 ft. speaker wire set I still needed something for the MiniWatt so I kept them.

The reason for my return is that for my rig and my subjective tastes I simply preferred the cables from Neko Audio. My Neko I.C.'s are XLR out with RCA input to the Rogue.

I listend to the A/C I.C. with a variety of music for 2 weeks through the Rogue. After the initial 24 hour break in I did enjoy what I was hearing....neutrality, separation/space, and unfortunately also some distortion was in the system that I had not noticed before. The A/C cable is very transparent and apparently also delivered whatever distortion my rig is giving out. Of course this is no fault of the A/C.

However, after a couple of weeks the frequency of hearing such distortion was increasing and with a variety of music that I had never heard such distortion before.

My Stello DAC has three outputs all of which can be utilized, XLR out, RCA out, and Toslink out. I had the Neko XLR out to Rogue CD input, and A/C RCA to the Aux 1 Rouge input. All is takes is a turn on the dial on the DAC and Rogue to switch input signals and I don't have to turn anything off..the music just keeps playing.

To my ears the Neko not only met the best attributes of the A/C but also surpassed it. In addition to the detail retrieval, space/separation I also got a richer tonal palate in the mids, warmth with romance, more bass depth and weight, and a presentation that is pushed forward toward the listener. I bought the Neko a couple of years ago and it's a 2 ft set. I think I paid like $67 for the set.

Bottom line: I am sticking with the Neko cable. It's the best cable my ears have heard in a system to date.

With regard to speaker wire. I did not use the 10 ft run and the 6 ft run is on the MiniWatt and I have to spend more time with that before I can comment on it.

[JohnMichael]

Cables are certainly system dependent. I can hear differences in cables but it takes time to decide if the differences are an improvement. I am glad to read you received good customer service.

I either need to solder the wires on one lug at the amp end or buy a banana that will clamp on both lugs for my bi wire pair. I was listening and one lug came off the amps terminal. All of a sudden no midrange or treble in one speaker. Fearing a short I am back to the AQ's until I create a solution so I only have one lug under each terminal.

I think the clarity of the AntiCables helped me hear the distortion that was building and indicated my amp needed repair.

No wire is perfect but the AntiCables are great for their price. My only very minimal criticism is I hear a reduction in instrumental textures. When I put some of my stranded cables in the system I hear more space and air but the sound is less focused. On some recordings I hear almost what I would call ghost images. I like the more focused soundstage.

[LeRoy]

JM, sorry to hear about your A/C cables becoming unhinged. Thats a bummer for sure. Yes, I agree with your assessment of a reduction of texture from the A/C wire. When I did a/b with the A/C vs Neko, the A/C sounded dry and somewhat mechanical but not sterile while the Neko gave the system presentation some warmth, emotion, texture, and a different kind of flow that I can only describe as sounding right to me.

Well, I hope you get the A/C cables fixed and back in the music chain. Have a great Easter Holiday.

[eisforelectronic]

I replaced my Anti-cables with Audio Quest Gibraltar. There's a huge price difference, so I would say the Anti's still win for bang for your buck. I am happier with the sound I get from the Audio Quest's though.

[JohnMichael]

You can well guess what I was doing when one of the bananas at the speaker side of my AQ Slates pulled free from the wire. Oh **** it had not been a good audio day. So I decide to grab a pair of the AntiCables and was only going to single wire.

Since for ease and the hope of no more damage I opted to single wire I needed to untwist a biwire pair. Being late and lazy I did not twist. When I first hooked up the cables in biwire I had not twisted them. I will not twist them again.

Untwisted I lost that glassy sound I noticed with the cables twisted. I had also complained about a loss of instrumental textures and they were back. Twisting may brighten the sound but in my system non twisted gives me more of what I want. Now I will be the only thing twisted in my audio room.

[JohnMichael]

Bi-wire is back and still no twist to the cables. I am amazed by the sonic degradation of the metal plate jumpers. My advice is to not twist the cables. The sound was a little brighter but the lack of detail caused by the glassiness and lack of instrumental textures was not worth it. If you try these do not twist.

[JohnMichael]

My new speakers the JBL Studio 530's benefit from the AntiCables and are back in the mix. My new speakers are a bargain at the sale price I purchased them and the AC cables are an equal deal. The combo is very amazing.