ANTICABLES would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a happy new year, and with the new year comes a new version our longest loved product line:

Level 2 and Level 3 Speaker Wires and Jumpers have been improved and are now called Level 2.1 and Level 3.1 Speaker Wires and Jumpers.

To help you celebrate the new year, through the month of January you can buy the new speaker wire and jumpers before the price increases on February 1.

Here is how the improvement came about.

After observing some batch-to-batch sonic inconsistencies with our #12 gauge wire, and accumulating reels of wire I was not willing to use in product, I launched a research project to find the assignable cause of the inconsistency.  Material Scientist Dr. Douglas Stauffer and I worked together for 6 months and successfully determined the variable causing the batch-to-batch sonic inconsistencies.  Dr. Stauffer called the variable “Dislocation Density”.

In material science, “dislocation” is a crystallographic defect, or irregularity, within a crystal structure. So “dislocation density” is simply the measure of the number of dislocations in a unit volume of the crystalline material.  Now knowing the variable, I could not-only control the variable, but it enabled us to push that variable as far as possible in the direction needed for even better sound. The goal in our case was to reduce the dislocation density as much as possible.

Dr. Stauffer helped me work with the US facility that draws our high purity oxygen-free copper wire to our specifications, to change the wire drawing process to achieve the lowest dislocation density possible. The new process was achieved and the sonic outcome was well beyond what was expected. This new #12 gauge Reduced Dislocation Density (RDD™) wire is so good sounding that a new pair of Level 2.1 Speaker Wires sounds better than a fully run-in pair of the previous Level 3 Speaker Wires. Yes, Level 2.1 actually leapfrogged the more expensive Level 3 in these ways: a sense of increased volume, midrange sounds more real, less grain noise, the highs are much smoother (like driving on a newly blacktopped road), more bass and better bass articulation, more exciting and involving.

Even though the new RDD™ wire will cause an upcoming price increase, since the new better sounding Level 2.1 will still cost significantly less that the old Level 3 Speaker Wires, this is yet another example of how ANTICABLES continually strives to offer better sounding products at lower prices. 

With two of the new RDD™ wires (Level 2.1) out performing four of the old wires (Level 3), the next question is what would four of the new RDD™ wires bring to the table? Doubling-up the new wire still proved quite beneficial, and will be available as Level 3.1, which when compared to the new Level 2.1 provides: an even greater sense of increased volume, livelier, more harmonic structure through the midrange, an increased clarity of downward dynamics (hear deeper into the recording), instruments sounding more presence in space, and additional bass weight, body and definition.

If you recently purchased a pair of our speaker wires, I have extraordinary news for you. The above research project ran from January to July of last year and we have been making and shipping all speaker wires orders since Aug 1st with the new Reduced Dislocation Density (RDD™) wire.  So, if you placed your order as far back as Aug 1st, you already got the sweetheart deal of getting the new RDD™ wire at the old price.

If you are unsure if you bought your speaker wires before or after Aug 1st, just look at the wires as they come up to the speakers. If there is a piece of red shrink tubing where the wires do a “Y” split, then you have the new RDD™ wire, and your Level 2 is actually Level 2.1, or your Level 3 is actually Level 3.1.  Enjoy!

If you are considering a new set of speaker wires and/or jumpers, order at anticables.com now through January 31 before the price increases.

I would like to publicly thank Dr. Stauffer for his invaluable assistance, Chuck Bottemiller for his help with sonic testing and comparing, and the US wire drawing facility that accommodating our process change.

Paul Speltz
Founder & President, ANTICABLES