Inside ANTICABLES: Evolution of Power Cords

ANTICABLES is never willing to offer a product until we are confident our design has the ability to outperform top tier offerings, at a fraction of the cost. After spending three years developing the best sounding power cord we had ever heard, in 2012 we released it as our Level 3 Reference Series Power Cord.

Wait a second- your first power cord released was the highest level?
We know what you’re thinking. Typical product evolution would be to first release a product, and then improve upon it. For our power cord line-up we released the best first, and then investing even more time into researching ways to reduce cost while maintaining a viable product. Thus came, the Level 2 Performance Series Power Cord, and Level 1 Classic Series Power Cord.Several years on the market, our power cords have consistently ranked among our top-selling products, and received outstanding reviews!

How can a High End Power Cord improve a system’s sound?
ANTICABLES high-end Power Cords are hand built using many wire strands drawn in a way that forms the wire into a cross sectional molecular shape, which allows noise coming from the component’s power supply to quickly escape the component on the skin of each wire strand.  In doing so, ANTICABLES  Power Cords help keep the component’s own power supply noise from contaminating the music. This processed wire also has the great advantage of time smearing any noise traveling in the wire in the opposite direction, thus reducing the amplitude of noise getting into the audio component from the wall outlet.

When should I use ANTICABLES Power Cords?
Since it is improbable that one would fully dive into investing in high-end power cords for every component in a system, the natural question is how to best invest progressively in ANTICABLES Power Cords. For the most cost effective strategy, we recommend this priority list:

Source (CD player, DAC, and phono preamplifier)
Digital Transport
Power Amplifiers
Preamplifier
Turntable Motor Supply

How do the levels sound when compared to one another?
This is one of the most difficult questions to answer! All three Power Cord levels and two other well known and well designed aftermarket power cables were compared in three different systems against the stock power cords. Below is a rough average of how they scored on a scale of 1 to 10. Our best advice is to buy the best scoring power cable that is within your system’s budget:
  • Free stock power cord scored 2.5
  • $700 Shunyata Research scored 5.5
  • $180 Level 1 ANTICABLES scored 6.5
  • $600 LessLoss Audio scored 7.0
  • $230 Level 2 ANTICABLES scored 8.0
  • $330 Level 3 ANTICABLES scored 9.5

Not sure which level to select?
Within 60 days of purchase, if you like your ANTICABLES power cord so much you want to hear how good a higher level will sound, we will give you full credit towards an equal or longer power cord of a higher level.

Mono & Stereo Reviews Level 6.2 Digital ICs

untitled (12 of 17)Kurt Lassen with Mono & Stereo reviews our Level 6.2 ABSOLUTE Signature Digital Interconnects.

Read the review here!

 

Back-Order Update

Our Level 3.1 and higher analog and digital interconnects were on back-order while we replenished stock of our ACElectrum™ wire. We are pleased to announce these products are in production again, a week ahead of schedule, and we are now accepting and shipping these interconnect orders as usual!

How do we come up with our product names, anyway?

Since ANTICABLES is continuously pushing for improvements in both our existing product line-up and new product development, we are never able to plan for what the next new product, or improved existing product, will be. Because of this, we don’t have the ability to “plan-out” our product line-up, and the product names evolved into what they are now.

For example, our top-of-the-line RCA and XLR ICs are at different Level numbers (Level 6.2 and 4.1 respectively), because there is a greater number of viable RCA plugs then XLR plugs that are feasible for our products.

Half a decade ago, when we started aggressively expanding our product line-up, we created different series names for the products to fit into. Since it is often confusing which series is better than the other, we added Level numbers to help describe the product placement. Here are the series we offer with a bit of description for each:

  • Classic Series (Level 1) represents our original technology that stirred up the cable industry nearly 15 years ago.
  • Performance Series (Level 2) is basically our Classics Series with some notable sonic improvements.
  • Reference Series (Level 3, 4, and 5) represents our best sounding offerings, and in our analog and digital interconnects, utilize our new ACElectrum™ Silver/Gold alloy signal wire.
  • Signature Series (Level 6) was never predicted, but was recently created as a way to differentiate how our top level RCA ICs are built with a much different topology than all our other analog ICs.

To further clarify, Levels ending in dot-1 or higher sport our new ACElectrum™ Silver/Gold alloy signal wire, and Levels ending in dot-2 came about when Keith Louis Eichmann came out with his new better sounding Harmony series of RCA plugs. This was our way to let our customer’s know the product has been improved upon. Also, when a notable RCA or XLR plug is used, we include it as part of the product name.

Hopefully that helps make sense of our unusual product names! Most people use just the product type and level number (ie. Level 3.2 RCA) to describe our product, which is fine by us.

Audiophilia – STAR COMPONENT Award

starcomponentAudiophilia reviews our level 6.2 Absolute Signature Interconnects and Level 4.1 Reference Plus Xhadow Interconnects… BOTH received their STAR COMPONENT Award!  Read the full review, here