Anti was my "reference" for a year, only because I saw the ads and couldn't afford anything else that I knew about. I did try Blue jeans 1505 coax and still enjoy those for the flexibilty, superb canare connectors and decent sound, but they aren't as transparent as the anti-copper ICs.
A couple months ago, we had an amp contest at my house and some Grovers and Realities came over where I heard them for the first time. The realities sounded at least as good as anti, but in that small moment I could not get a sense of exactly how they differ, only to say they seemed better but could have been mental illusion. Since then I have listened to them again, but not for long, never lived with them overnight. A few people whose opinion I respect prefer them to Anti and Grover.
At the amp contest I also heard the Grover for the first time, and was much more affected by the change in sound. Transparency increase over the anti was not subtle, it was very obvious to everyone in the room (4 of us) all but one were hearing it for the first time. Within 5 seconds we were all commenting at once out loud, "Whoa! what is this one?" kind of thing..
I bought three pairs of Grovers and use those now. I still have the anti and the blue jeans in my system and still enjoy using them, as they do sound great, except the transparency is not to the degree that the Grover provides. The transparency of the anti-copper would have been plenty good enough had I not heard the Grovers, anti's are extremely good, especially for the $. The grover has no detectable downsides to my ear. Not excessively sibilant or hyped. It is natural and musical, recordings just sound more real, that's all. Bass and mids remain natural and powerful as with anti. It is a gentle "focus" increase on the lens, no "sharpening" effects. I have pretty transparent system so the changes are very easy to hear between cables and other tweeks. YMMV.
Grovers are not as flexible as my other brands, and are bright white, which does not fit into my decor so well. The connectors are custom specified by Grover and are not big metal bullets, some extra care is needed in plugging and unplugging them to avoid any extra stress, nothing to worry about. The connectors are very tight for RCAs, which I like. Prices are right in line with these other two brand you mentioned. Also consider anti-silver ICs, they are new and have been getting good reviews around here. Paul Speltz and his wife are angels, so I'm glad to hear they now have a product that can keep up with the latest and greatest competition. I have not heard the anti-silver ICs. I do use anti-copper speaker wire and jumpers and did not hear significant difference between that and Reality speaker wire on a short audition, but I will compare the two again sometime when I can spend more time. My impression was that Reality speaker cable is slightly better, but nobody can touch anti speaker cable price, $10/ft!
Hope this helps
Rich
