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Anti-Cables and magnet wire

It is well known that the favorably received "Anti-Cables are 12 gauge enameled magnet wire. Has anyone actually bought bulk magnet wire to try it? Has anyone found any differences between standard bulk magnet wire and Anti-Cables?

Anti-Cables will sell you bulk, unterminated Anti-Cables for $1.25 per foot (or $2.50 per foot terminated with spades). 12 gauge enameled magnet wire in small 50 ft rolls can be had for about $0.30 per foot from a wire supply house.

(As an aside, Alpha-Core (makers of Goertz audio cables) will also sell you bulk 12 gauge magnet wire -- 10lbs (their minimum, or about 500 feet) for about $61, or a 1:2 ratio flattened version for about $90. Alpha-Core is a quality producer, and I wouldn't hesitate to buy anything from them, but the 10lb/500 foot minimum is a bit much.)

I figure I need about 100 feet in total. $30 for the bulk product is cheap enough to try (and saves $95) and throw away if it isn't any good. However, if someone knows it really is going to be significantly different than the anti-cable in some way, why waste my time and effort?

Anyone have any experience, thoughts or insights with this? Thanks.
lotusm50
davehrab's avatar
davehrab
380 posts
 
Do you know what grade of copper is used in magnet wire? I don't, but there is nothing onthe web page that indicates it is anything different than magnet wire.

From Speltz's web site ...

"The Difference
The Anti-Cable wire is made of one solid piece of highly annealed, super long drawn, Continuously Cast Oxygen Free Copper."

I would say the key words there are .... "Continuously Cast Oxygen Free Copper."

YMMV
lotusm50 OP
29 posts
 
"Continuously Cast" is actually pretty common, and I think (but don't know for sure) that nearly all copper these days is continuously cast for reasons of productivity, efficiency, etc.

Most of the generic magnet wire available has 200-400 ppm of oxygen to achieve the best combination of cost, conductivity, capacity for being cold worked. However, 99.95% and 99.99% oxygen free Copper magnet wire is generally available. The casual user, hobbyist, etc. may have a hard time finding some in retail quantities.
cpk
190 posts
 
Not to be confused with Ohno Cast copper...Much better and more $$$
honest1
586 posts
 
400 ppm is 99.96% pure; 200ppm is 99.98%pure.
damjammer
4 posts
 
I have never auditioned the anti-wires.
I have an Exemplar 2900 connected to a Bat integrated via a Yamamura Millenium 6000 interconnect. Both are powered through Foundation Research LC2 conditioner/power cords. My speakers are Opera Quintas.
Today I went to the Home Depot and purchased some 14 Ga. solid copper wire, red ones for + and green ones for -, and used these for speaker wires.
They're about 4 feet long, bare wire at the amp, bare wire going through both
the speaker binding post. I separated the green from the red wires by placing
wine bottle corks between them at about every foot, and tie wrapped the wires to the corks, two tie wraps per cork. I then ensured that the cables were bent well away from other wires, components, walls and floor.
I then started listening and became immediately aware that these solid core copper cables that cost me less than $6.00, right of the roll, totally blew away the $2,500.00 speaker cables that they replaced.
Try it, you only have six dollars to lose!
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