ANTICABLES Lab: Why Power Cords Matter (Part 1 of 2)

by Paul Speltz

The development cycle for our power cords lasted three years. We spent two years first figuring out and understanding why power cords can make an audible difference, and then another year optimizing the design with that knowledge. The long development cycle paid off. In the four years since they first came out, we have not needed to make any improvements in the design. Customers that bought them in 2012 have the same performance as power cords sold today.

Power LinesIf you think of a power cord as the last five feet of getting power from the electric company’s power plant into your component, electrically it does not have much sonic advantage. But, if you model a power cord as the first five feet of getting the noise generated in the component’s own power supply out of the component (so it does not get into the music), power cords make a lot more sense.

Any manufacturer that markets their heavy duty power cords towards customer’s big power amplifiers, and offers smaller gauge power cords for customers to use on lower power components such as DACs  and PreAmps, is designing to the “last five feet” model, and missing out on the bigger advantages of what a properly designed power cord is capable of.

If I had only one ANTICABLES Level 3 Power cord (our heaviest duty offering), for my personal listening system, I would use it on my DAC instead of my power amp to get best sound. This is because DAC’s, by nature, are generally much more susceptible to noise than power amps. Noise in DACs causes timing errors call jitter, and it is jitter that makes digital audio sound flat, hard, and non-dynamic.  Jitter makes bass sound wooly, voices and piano sound harmonically uninteresting, and cymbals sound like spray cans. Our Level 3 Power cord is so good at removing noise from components, it is my top recommendation for Digital sources, CD players and DACs.

A properly designed power cord can improve the sound of any component, it is just generally true that digital components have greater potential for sonic improvement than other components, but that is only if the power cord used has been designed as the first five feet of getting the component’s own power supply noise out of the component.

Most audiophiles have been told the only noise source getting into their music is from all the computers, lights, and appliances running in their and their neighbors houses. But I believe the biggest source of noise getting into the music signal  is from the component’s own power supply (which can be an inch or two away from critical circuitry).  If you think about it, this makes so much sense, it is practically self-evident .

Our “first five feet” designed power cords have become so well received, that they have gone from a nice sideline offering, to now to being our customer’s favorite product. Our Level 3 Power Cord was ANTICABLES top selling product last quarter.

Next month, I will share my unusual perspective on power conditioners.

Read Why Power Cords Matter, Part 2

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It’s All About the Music: The Dakota Jazz Club

by Judy Speltz

This past week, Paul and I caught Ruthie Foster playing at the Dakota Jazz Club in downtown Minneapolis. It’s a small venue — a restaurant with less than 350 seats around a small stage. It reminds me of the “MTV Unplugged” set— but with food and wine, and room to dance if the mood moves you, but cozy.

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Judy Speltz of ANTICABLES with Jack Broadbent

Prior to the show, the manager always comes out to engage the audience in conversation and promote upcoming shows. This particular night, he said “we have a surprise”.  A slender young man with long hair and a beard/mustache sauntered out on stage holding a pint and introduced himself with a British accent as Jack Broadbent. He then sat down on his small amp, lay his electric guitar on his lap, grabbed the silver whiskey flask he uses for a slide, and put the audience at attention with the first pluck of the strings.

If music were static, then we were all clinging to the whip of his wrist as the whiskey flask traveled up and down the neck of his guitar. I think we were in disbelief for a minute, but soon surrendered to the trance we found ourselves in.

Lucky for us, Jack had just finished a tour with Peter Frampton, and after ringing up someone in the Twin Cities, we found him playing ahead of Ruthie Foster that night. We’ve come to learn that Broadbent has already made quite a name for himself, starting on Youtube playing on the streets of London and Amsterdam. I guess Paul and I are late to the party — but if you haven’t heard of him either, familiarize yourself with this man cause he ain’t goin’ no where but up!

Ruthie Foster is no stranger to fame. She’s been singing since she was a young girl — at 14 Ruthie was the soloist in the church choir. If you Wikipedia Ruthie, her accolades are numerous, too many to mention here. It was a beautiful evening of music from Ruthie and her band. Ruthie’s gospel background flavors all her music and keeps you firmly connected to her southern roots. It was our first time seeing Ruthie, a woman who has been compared to the great Aretha Franklin. It was one of those evenings where you feel so damn lucky.

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Capital Audiofest Wrap-up

Photos Credit: Audiophilia Capital Audiofest Show report

Although we were not able to personally attend, the ANTICABLES products made an appearance last month at Capital Audiofest which is held just north of our nation’s capital. Mark Sossa of Well Pleased AV pulled together a listening room using electronics he represents including Aqua Audio’s La Voce DAC ($2700), Antipodes DS music server ($2800), and Clones 25iR integrated amp ($1200).

The room filled with music through Mike Levy’s new Alta Audio IO Loudspeaker ($3000/pair). ANTICABLES Speaker Wires, Interconnects, and Power Cords glued it all together.

The three of us are planning on putting together an even higher level system in a listening room this October at RMAF in Colorado. More on that soon!

Thank you Mark and Mike for your efforts!
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Paul

 

ANTICABLES Products at Capital Audiofest:
See show reports on the Capital Audiofest room in Audiophilia.

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Inside ANTICABLES: Thaine, Product Assembler

Thaine, Product AssemblerThaine comes to us from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. He moved to Minnesota last August as a recent graduate of Michigan Technological University in Biomedical Engineering.

 

With his interests in restoring vintage electronics, such as a 1950’s TV, and a 1970’s Realistic Amp — Thaine found ANTICABLES and has been with us since February of this year, as a product assembler specializing in the production of Interconnects and Speaker Wires.

We are thrilled to have him as a part of our ANTICABLES family, and would like to extend our congratulations to him, as he will be getting married later this month!

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It’s All About the Music: The Jayhawks

The Jayhawksby Judy Speltz

For the past three summers we have been attending “Music in the Zoo” concert series at the Minnesota Zoo — a small amphitheater setting outdoors among the animals.

In late June we settled into a fantastic concert with three encores: The Jayhawks. We’ve had a couple of their albums for years, listening to them as they make their way through our music rotation. Paul noted, “I’ve always wanted to be able to like The Jayhawks more than I did, and seeing them in person achieved that”.

I have to agree — WOW, what a great night. Seeing live music is always exciting, especially when it’s an intimate setting, but their music is still resonating in my head a week later.

How do you define them: are they folk, are they soft rock? Greg Louris’s guitar playing could really grind out the Rock side of their music, yet the harmony and lyrics to their songs are soulful and steadfast.

The night was a pleasant surprise for us, and we hope you will take an evening to become more familiar with this long standing Minnesota original, The Jayhawks.

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Best in Show: Value for your money.

hifi

ANTICABLES was honored to get the attention of Chris Martens, who is the Publisher of the excellent publication Hi-Fi+, at T.H.E. Show Newport last month. Chris recognized the sound in our Listening Room, and the less-is-more concept we were displaying at our booth, with his “Best in Show” nod, both for our ANTICABLES products, and Listening Room at the show.

Chris said our Room 404 was “One system that strongly emphasized value for money”.  We couldn’t agree more. Thank you Chris!

The full room setup included:

Read the Articles from Hi-Fi:

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Capital Audiofest July 8-10

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If you are going to Capital Audiofest this weekend, be sure to stop into listening room 206 to hear the system Mark Sossa of Well Pleased AV has put together. Mark will be showing a musically sounding affordable system with speakers and electronics he represents. The room will include:
  • Alta Audio Solo Speakers – $999
  • Clones 25iR Stereo Amplifier – $1200
  • Aqua Acoustic La Voce DAC – $2700
  • Antipodes DS Server – $2800

To hear how good those components actually sound, Mark will be connecting them all together with ANTICABLES top of the line USB and Analog ICs, Speaker Wires, and Power Cords totalling only $1922.

Get 20% off from ANTICABLES at Capitol Audiofest

As an added bonus, Mark will be passing out ANTICABLES Price Sheets with a Coupon Code worth 20% off your next on-line order with us, just for stopping in.

Unfortunately, we will not get there this weekend, so please let us know what you thought of the system.

THE Show Recap & the “Art of Merryl Jaye “

BobMarley5 Recap from Judy Speltz

June of this year we traveled to Irvine California for the T.H.E. Audio show.  This was our second time attending — and it was fantastic to be back! We want to extend our gratitude for all who stopped by to visit with Paul and myself.  It was fantastic meeting so many of our customers.  We very much appreciate your support and business!

There was one vendor that caught my eye,  “The Art of Merryl Jaye“.  WOW. She had a number of original works on display and well as prints of all sizes.  These pieces would really dress up your listening room — if you didn’t catch her at T.H.E. Show, here is her studio website: Merryl Jaye Studio.

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It’s All About the Music: Ziggy Marley

IMG_4444This past June we attended a ‘Music is the Zoo’ concert (part of our local Minnesota Zoo summer concert series), featuring Ziggy Marley.

His concert came on the heals of the Orlando tragedy, when our country was feeling heavy with sadness and frustration.  He walked out on stage, the crowd rose and we never sat down for the entirety of his performance — two hours plus an encore.

His music, with its message of Love, Peace, Joy, and Mother Earth was so uplifting and full of celebration, and really brought a few thousand strangers together, as only Reggae music can do.  Like his father, Bob Marley, Ziggy held the crowd in his hand as we all moved to the groove of “Is this love”, “Jammin”, and “No Woman No Cry”. It was a magical evening and one we will remember with great fondness!

T.H.E. Show – A weekend of Fun for Music & Audio Enthusiasts

THIS weekend (June 3-5) we’ll be at T.H.E. Show Newport with the same team-up that was “flat out dominating” at AXPONA: ANTICABLES, Spatial Audio and Red Dragon Audio.

Listening Room 404
Booth F14

Also be sure to visit Listening Room 421 where Mark Sossa of Well Pleased AV, will be showing Stefano Jelo’s Aqua Acoustic electronics from Italy.

Mark recently received a full loom of ANTICABLES and said, “I am dumbfounded by the difference which is immediately obvious. Clarity, dynamics, bass, and layers of harmonics are so much more palpable….”.

Then a day later we got another email from Mark declaring, “We are definitely using your cables at NEWPORT my friend!”, so I think it is safe to say you will be able to hear the ANTICABLES in both Rooms 404 and 421.