Rnadelman.. stock Anti-Cables are shielded...that is, the ground wire wraps around the hot legs which look like a slinky. It does not have a solid shield. One of the places I use balanced cable is from the turntable to the preamp. I was concerned that it would hum, so for no extra charge they made me a special double shielded cable. I tried that one and compared it to a "regular" balanced Anticable interconnect. The result is that there was no hum/noise at all with either interconnect...the regular one was slightly more open sounding, so I use the regular.