My entry into cable design began out of a practical need. In the ‘70's I was working at a sound and lighting company in Los Angeles, at a time when the first big discotheques were being installed. The lighting systems were generating noise that was being picked up by the speaker cable.

Traditionally sound and lighting systems were not installed right next each other, nor did lighting systems ever have such an array of noise generating fixtures, such as strobes and other flashing and dimmable lights. But in a discotheque the lights and speakers are installed next to each other. The speaker cable was acting as an antenna array and bringing the noise from the lights into the sound system. We tried to cure the problem by encasing the speaker cable in steel conduit, and while that helped the noise it also had the unintended result of lowering the fidelity of the audio. This was due to the steel interacting with the magnetic field of the speaker cable.

I had the idea of some counter-rotating sets of conductors to cancel the magnetic interaction effect, but then also surmised that the counter-rotating sets of conductors would likely not pick up the noise even without the conduit. I was correct, the noise was greatly reduced! But I was also quite surprised at the difference in perceived audio quality. It was that discovery of noise elimination and improved fidelity that set me to developing cable designs.

To my great satisfaction the finalized version of my braided wire concept not only rejected the (RF) noise, but allowed the system to sound different, better, musical. It was after this period of discovery that I decided to take a risk and began entertaining the idea of selling these new discoveries. Over the years I would continue to test various metals as conductors, assorted manufacturing protocols, assorted stranding sizes, different twist lengths and insulation, as well as methods for adhering insulation to cable. All the time improving, modifying, and expanding upon my original cable concept and design.

Since the incorporation of my company in 1979 I have remained very involved in many aspects of the industry. I have been involved in several industry organizations and am now serving on a CEA (Consumer Electronics Association) board for specialty audio/video companies.

Research is really the basis on which I founded the company. Research and development is what gives me the most joy and hopefully produces a product which gives the customer great joy. The ability to correlate objective, scientific data with human listening experiences has always been fascinating to me. We call our engineering process OSCaR (Objective Subjective Correlation and Results). Through this process we have been able to make the critical link between scientific measurements and listening impressions. In other words we know precisely why our cables perform as they do. When conducting in house cable experiments, using some very advanced measurement techniques and equipment, we are able to predict with astonishing accuracy what a cable will sound like to a listener. We believe that research, development and manufacturing are the keys to the success and acceptance we have had in the audio industry.

Well, as mentioned previously, I started out working in the pro audio world. I also had many connections and associates in the consumer audio world which helped me to understand both industries quite well. After developing the braided cable concept I took the plunge and started selling. I hit the road with a few spools of cable and some modest test equipment. I first showed that there was a testable difference in cables and then I would do a simple "before and after" test, replacing regular speaker cables with Kimber Kable. For these tests I would choose the most modest system in the dealer showroom. The result was very obvious — it made a significant difference.

In many ways I am very concerned about the specialty cable industry. I am concerned about both the inside realities of cable companies as well as the outside perception of hi-end cable companies. In a December 1998 issue of Forbes Magazine an article was published after investigating a popular cable company. The article was titled "Selling sizzle with sizzle." The article compared stereo cables with the practice of spraying an undercoating on a car. In other words they were saying that high end stereo cables were essentially snake oil. The article speaks of incentives to sales people such as fancy trips or the priviledge of driving fancy sports cars. This aricle did damage to other cable companies, even those companies that don’t believe in or condone such practices. The journalist that wrote the article couldn’t find any technological reasons to recommend such product. He felt it was all about the marketing and certainly not about technology. Unfortunately, articles like this do great harm to companies who believe in technology and research. Because of this perception many consumers will never have the oportunity or inclination to experience the joy that can be had from a fine stereo system. We are in this business because we are able to produce products that do make a difference.

One of my mottos over the years has been "high performance and low price" and I intend on keeping it that way. The way our products are priced is in direct relation with our raw costs. We don’t mark a cable up simply because we can. Over the years we have heard comments on our cables such as "you could charge three times your price for this cable and it would still be a good deal." We are flattered by these comments but still price the cable based on its raw costs and not on its perceived market value.

See question #4.

The future of the cable industry is very hard to predict. Consumer buying habbits are changing. A lot of this has to do with the way manufacturers market their product to the public. Many manufacturers are cheapening products in an attempt to increase revenues. Other manufacturers make products with integrity and real value. We believe that producing products with great performance and real value will keep us strong in the future. We believe our future is bright because we are always searching for ways to improve performance and value. We always want to be known as the industry leader in performance and technology.