Don't read you'll be sorry

Manitunc

Yes indeed I scraped of some silver to expose copper, its also evident form looking in at the end of the conductors.

I don't think these wires are "counterfeits" in the sense as made a completely different place than legit Audioquest wire, everything just looks to "real" including the box they came in.

Theres another clue as to that its a "Rockefeller" wire when looking in straight at the wide side of the cable you see only 2 silver stripes barely any of the silver stripes on the sides, just like the picture on AQ's site of the Rockefeller. On their picture of the real K2 much more of the stripes on the sides are visible indicating that the k2 is physically larger than the Rockefeller .

Now for some pure speculation - could it be that this wire was a test run of wire that never made it to market, the "Rockefeller 3" The wire picked up by some "crafty" folks whom terminated them put them in boxes and marketed them as real "K2" because of all the similarities, ie color of jacket silver plated wire etc. Again this is pure speculation on my side.

As always, Good Listening

Peter

"could it be that this wire was a test run of wire that never made it to market, the "Rockefeller 3"

It could also be any cheap wire with Rockefeller printed on the outside. Original Rockefeller uses partially conductive Polyethylene insulation on negative wire. Easy enough to measure with ohmmeter. If it measures infinity then it cannot be Rockefeller. Also, AQ stated that they use silver plated copper for subwoofer wire only.

Kijanki

That is another possibility but at this time i don't think so - theres to many things that are "right" with this wire. Per your suggestion i tried to measure conductance of the insulation with a Fluke 187 multimeter on the insulation with 1/2" spacing between leads and it measures infinite on both positive and negative. Tried the same on a pair of genuine Audioquest Viper interconnects I have with the same result infinite resistenace on all three leads. It can be that this "partially conductive" polyethylene would have to be measured for conductance with for an example a "megger" (instrument used for measuring ground faults in electrical installations, that measures at a much higher voltage - 1000V)

So I'm going to suggest something crazy - anyone having participated in this thread having a feedback of at least 50, no negatives, are welcome to try out these wires - I'll send them to you via fedex ground, If you accept this offer you agree to be responsible for shipping them back to me or to the next person wanting to try them out whom will be accepting the same responsibilities, you also agree that you will not take them apart more than you are capable of putting them back together again.

As Always, Good Listening

Peter

Peter, why you compare it to Viper? Viper uses foam Polyethylene and should measure infinity. Carbon loaded Polyethylene should measure within 1Mohm. This is second clue in addition to silver plating that shouldn't be there.

Kijanki

It is the only other Audioquest wire I have, did not check what insulation is supposed to be on it. But yes its a second clue.

As always, Good Listening

Peter