Capital Audiofest 2019

Dear Fellow Audiophiles,

We are excited to announce that we will be attending Capital Audiofest 2019, November 1-3 at the Twinbrook Hilton, Rockville Maryland.

We are partnering with 8 great companies and can be heard in 3 different listening rooms and the Linear Tube Audio Headphone Lounge. Hear us in these rooms:

Room #410 with Caprice AudioAlta AudioKR Audio

Room #508 with McGary AudioSalk SoundExogal

Room #526 with Linear Tube AudioSpatial 

…and at the LTA Headphone Lounge with Linear Tube Audio

For more information about CAF, check out their website by clicking HERE.

See you there!

-Paul Speltz

🎶 AXPONA This Weekend!

April 12 – 14, 2019
Renaissance Schaumburg
Hotel & Convention Center

Dear Fellow Audiophiles,

We invite you to come visit us and hear our cables this weekend at AXPONA in Chicago. We’ve teamed up with eleven great companies for this show and can be heard in five different listening rooms as well as an Ear-Gear Booth.

Stop by any of our rooms to chat with us and learn more about our products. Hope to see you there!

Paul Speltz
Founder, ANTICABLES

Special Pricing at AXPONA!

Stop by any of our rooms to pick up the new ANTICABLES brochure and price sheet. In it will be a price list and a Coupon Code towards your next purchase of  Speaker Wires, Interconnects, and Power Cords.

Listening Room #366

Listening Room #558

Listening Room #510

Listening Room #570

Listening Room #696

 

Spatial Audio Factory Tour

Dear Fellow Audiophiles,

             Earlier this month I went on a snowboarding trip to Park City, Utah.  I was lucky and timed it just right as a massive snowstorm passed through the morning I arrived. The storm dumped so much snow it took hours to dig a path into the small miner’s cabin I rented.

After three days in the mountains enjoying the best snow conditions of my life, I had a few hours to spare before my evening flights out. I called Clayton Shaw of Spatial Audio to see if I could visit his new factory in Salt Lake City.  Even though it was Saturday, Clayton said, “Sure, I’ll be here all day”.  

When I arrived, Clayton was in the middle of personally assembling a pair of his newly revised Lumina L2 speakers finished in beautiful Lamborghini orange paint.

When Clayton debuted his M3 Triode Master speaker at AXPONA 2017, I took delivery of my own pair in black just a month later. 

Anyone interested in hearing them in the Twin Cities area is welcome to contact me for a private audition ( paul@anticables.com or call 651-735-0534 ).

 

The M3 Triode Master is Spatial Audio’s current top-selling speaker. 

Clayton moved into this new Salt Lake City location a year or so ago. He more recently doubled his facility space which enabled him to build out a dedicated listening room for customers to do factory auditions, and…

…move all aspects of manufacturing into this one location. 

ANTICABLES and Spatial Audio have been teaming up at trade shows for years. We make good show partners because we both offer factory direct audio products that far outperform their price point. This is achieved with solid engineering, designing towards simplicity, low overhead, efficient manufacturing, and personal support. 

Look for our products teamed up in multiple demo rooms at AXPONA in Chicago April 12 -14th 2019. 

Thank you, Clayton, for the great factory tour!
 

Paul Speltz
Founder, ANTICABLES

Hi-Fi+ Interview – Part 1

Dear Fellow Audiophiles,

We are looking back to over a year ago when Hi-Fi+ published a Cables Buyers Guide in which they interviewed six experts from the audio industry including: 

George Cardas of Cardas Audio

Ray Kimber of Kimber Kable

John McDonald of Audience

Joe Reynolds of Nordost

Caelin Gabriel of Shunyata Research

and Paul Speltz of Anticables

Below is the first half of their interview with me, Paul Speltz. The entire Hi-Fi+ Cable Buyers Guide can be downloaded HERE

 

Photo by Chris Martens of Hi-Fi+

As part of the Hi-Fi+ Guide to Audio Cables and Power Products (http://www.hifiplus.com/buyers_guides/6/), we spoke to Paul Speltz of AntiCables about the technologies used by the company, the history and future of AntiCables, and more…

Hi-Fi+: How and when did you first discover that differences in audio cables could actually affect the sound of hi-fi systems? Were you surprised at the time?

Paul: That would have been too long ago for me to remember specifically. You see, in addition to running the ANTICABLES, I am also an electronic engineer in the telecom industry. For 32 years I have been a board level designer, creating circuitry used to transfer an analog signal from point A to point B over long distances. Understanding signal transmission has been my job for years, so I feel like I have always known cables matter, even before I started DYI’ing my own audio cables back in the 90’s.

What was the first range of cable products you designed and when did it enter the market? How did it compare to other cables at the time?

Our first product was the ZERO-Autoformers, which when used with mono block amplifiers took the place of speaker cables. They were first introduced early 2001. The “ZEROs” were used to increase the impedance of any speaker, so it would be “easier” for an amplifier to drive.

Improvements were made to the autoformer’s lead out wire. Long story short, the wire was so good, it in itself became its own product called “Anti-Cable Speaker Wires”. I named them this because the un-jacketed red coated wire didn’t look like, cost like, or sound like typical speaker cables. Since “cable” is basically wire with thick jacketing, and since it didn’t use thick jacketing, they were the Anti-Cables.

I should explain. Every time I tried dressing up my good sounding wire with jacketing so it looked like a speaker cable, it sounded like a speaker cable. Jacketing causes dielectric effect distortion that time smears the music signal and makes cables sound like cables. I decided to give up the jacketing, call them the “Anti-Cables”, and sell them in their naked form. The product was so popular that ANTICABLES later became the business name.

How has the audio cable industry evolved over the past several years? What are the pros and cons of the path the industry has taken?

This answer might be a bit dated, and may offer little insight, but the ability to sell direct to customers still feels the biggest change to me. It is what enabled me to go into business years ago.

The “cons” are, there are a lot more competitors, and a lot more for the consumer to sort through. The “pros” are, the competition keeps me on my toes. I am constantly looking for ways to push for even higher performance and greater value to remain competitive, and the customer benefits.

Some audio cable manufacturers focus primarily on premium-priced products, but your firm offers some ranges of cables that are far more sensibly priced. What led you to create ranges of value-minded cables?

Through the years, I personally was not willing to spend the asking price of some of the cable offerings I wanted in my system, so I now get a kick out of being able to offer higher performing cables at lower than typical prices.

I do not base our product prices on where they “fit” in the marketplace. In other words, I don’t say since our product “X” sounds better than their product “Y”, we should ask more for it. Instead, I base our asking price on the cost of materials, the cost of labor, and add on enough margin to cover business expenses.

Also, since I still hold my original career job as the Senior Electronic Engineer for a telecom/security equipment manufacturer, I don’t need to sell cables to “pay the mortgage”, so I am able to keep the ANTICABLES as a fun business.

What do you personally consider to be the ‘sweet spot’ product (or products) in your range in terms of maximum performance per dollar ($), pound (£), or euro (€)? What sets those products apart?

Our original “speaker wires”, from 14 years ago, have been through 11 improvements and are now called our Level 2.1 Speaker Wires. Anyone asking where to start with our products in their system will probably hear me recommending these, (or our Level 3.1 which is the same speaker wire but doubled up). At the cost of only $8/ft. per speaker, they offer ridiculously good sound for the cost.

Customers that fall in love with these speaker wires typically come back next for interconnects, and then finish out with our power cords.

Might I say, don’t underestimate the importance of a properly designed power cord. As a second sweet spot, I’d consider our Level 3 Power Cord, which was our #1 selling product for 2016, because of its cost to performance ratio.

– End of Part 1 –

Many thanks to Chris Martens and the rest of the Hi-Fi+ staff.

Paul Speltz
Founder, ANTICABLES

Audiophilia – 2018 Products of the Year

Dear Fellow Audiophiles,

I am pleased to announce that this year Audiophilia has named our Level 3 Power Cordin their 2018 Products of the Year list. We are proud the be among a number of great products and would like to thank Anthony Kershaw of Audiophilia for this honor. 

In his review of our power cord, Anthony says…

“Introduction of three Level 3 Reference Series Power Cords into my system was quite a shock.”

“The music flowed, was rhythmically astute to each piece, and reminded me why I like my system so much.”

“Power cords can cost far more than the very reasonable Level 3s. So, considering the Anticables Level 3 Reference do what they do for $330, and come with a 30 day, risk-free trial, are beautifully made, a listen in your system is a no-brainer… these superb ancillaries will make a very musical difference.”

To read the full review, click here and here! I would once again like to personally thank Anthony Kershaw for his efforts. I am happy to hear he is enjoying his reference system more than ever.

When you are ready to take your music system to the next level, I invite you to give our Level 3 Power Cords a try. Most customers start with one, love what they hear, then come back for more. 

Paul Speltz
Founder, ANTICABLES