Anticables speaker wire have no plastic jacket/insulation?


Yesterday I received in the mail a pair of Anticables "Level 3 Reference Series Speaker Wires". I bought them because I had heard good reviews about them and relative to other speaker wire they are inexpensive so I thought I would give them a try. I read the reviews of these wires several years ago so I forgot that one of their selling points is that they have no insulation. They are, as far as I can tell, red-painted (anodized?) bare wire. The second thing that was immediately obvious that I did not know before I bought them is that they are very stiff. Almost as stiff as a metal-wire coat hanger. 

My question is, if these are bare wire, are they unsafe to touch while the amplifier that is driving them is powered on? I'm not an electrical engineer, but I would think yes. If that is not the case, I'd like to know why. If they are unsafe to touch these wires could be a hazard to children and pets (at the very least), which I do not have but some people might take that into consideration. 

At this time the wires are still in "break in" period. Anticables recommends 100 hours. I will wait at least that long before judging them. Afterwords I will post my impressions of them, detail the equipment I'm using and compare them to my current speaker cables which are also inexpensive but good. 
e91811
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Years ago when I was selling speaker wire for 40 cents a foot some thought it way too much and got lamp cord  instead. I bought Anticable and would rather have had the lamp cord!

Stanwal...years ago anti's were magnet wire.  Paul's top cables today are silver/high quality copper...a totally different animal.  ..they work well in some system, not so well in other systems...like all other cable.

Old thread, but wanted to see if there are any other anticables owners out there that went from their level 3 to level 5 speaker wire.

The level 3 has amazing clarity but it’s a bit too much with treble - perhaps a little bright. Just wondering if that was tamed over 100+ hours or their silver/gold cables alleviated this.