An Informal Assessment of Anti Cables

My experience with Anti Cable speaker cables surprised me and I though others may want to read about what I found to be a very good speaker cable.

I will do this somewhat briefly and forego the typical audiophile jargon. The Anti Cables are better than what I was using, which were custom shotgun runs of Kimber 4TC (four sets of 4TC cables per speaker; one double shotgun pair for the top and another double shotgun pair on for the bottom; each shotgun pair were twisted together – three twists per foot, and the two shotgun pairs were then twisted together – three twists per foot, to complete one set).

I always found the Kimber setup to be very pleasing, but here’s what I heard with the Anti Cables in place: a very noticeable increase in upper-mid-range and upper frequency resolution (“clarity” if you will). Here is a “tangible” example of what I heard: on the excellent Blue Coast Records’ live acoustic recording by Keith Greeniger (the song titled “Three Little Birds” – an old Bob Marley tune) the recording captures a conversation between Keith and another musician prior to the beginning of the song, in which that other musician yells to Cookie Marenco, the producer. “Are you ready Cookie?” Until I installed the Anti Cables, I was not aware that Cookie is a woman. With the Kimber in place, I could barely hear a response (and only when I really cranked the volume). What I could barely hear was completely inaudible (buried way in the background). With the Anti Cables in place, I could clearly hear Cookie’s response and by golly, Cookie is a woman!

If you have this recording and you can clearly hear (Ms) Marenco respond, then you already have a pretty revealing system (how’s that for science!). For me, this was really cool, because it was “clearly” measurable; it was instantly “tangible.” Now, I was somewhat excited, so I delved into a whole slew of my favorite recordings. The increased clarity and resolution in the mid-range and upper-frequencies made my music sound…well, clearer and more resolved (how else can I say it).

There is a noticeable decrease in what I would deem bass energy, which at first concerned me. Upon further listening, I feel that the bass is simply more refined (tighter if you will). I will experiment with the setup to determine whether, or not, I am utilizing the best termination solution.

Paul sent me what he considers to be his best method, which he calls a set of shotgun parallel bi-wired cables. If you read my other thread about parallel bi-wiring, you know that I was not only confused, but concerned that Paul had sent me the wrong setup. What I have now is two sets of Anti Cables per speaker, but they’re setup differently from what I consider a typical “bi-wired” run. Here, both sets of cables are twisted together (the single run, which comprises two cables, is twisted – three turns per foot; and then each of the twisted pairs are twisted together – three turns per foot – very similar to what I had arranged with the Kimber). This double shotgun run terminates at the speaker end in just one set of spades, which I have hooked to each speaker’s upper frequency binding posts; a set of Anti Cable jumpers are then used to “jump” the low frequency binding posts.

My experiment will be to go directly to the low frequency posts and then jump to the upper frequency posts. Anyway, the point is that I can really hear a significant improvement in clarity and resolution, which is exactly what my speakers needed. I was ready to get rid of my Resolution II’s in favor of the new Maggie 1.7s, but now I might just have to rethink that move.

Thought this might be helpful to those who have ever wondered about Anti cables…