I was born, and lived in Ohio until I was five years old. We moved to California where I lived for the next 13 years. My interest in music started around 10 years of age. We lived in the San Francisco area where the musical scene was exploding with great new music. That was the beginning, and some would say, the end for me. I didn’t know it then, but music was leading me straight into the audio industry. My desire to hear music sound great at home was all the motivation I needed to start exploring audio equipment and all things related.

I moved with my family to New Jersey and spent four years there. I got my first job in the audio business at Sam Goody’s. This was a retail store that covered a lot of ground when it came to music. Sam Goody’s sold records, tapes, musical instruments, and audio equipment. Although Sam Goody’s didn’t start me in the audio department I made my way there as quickly as possible. I had a fantastic manager who recognized my desire for all things musical, he taught me the basics about audio equipment and provided a lot of positive support, propelling my interest to new levels.

I worked in many retail stores over the years and sold just about every brand we had access to in the USA. Eventually I moved to Texas and began work in Dallas’ premiere hifi shop. In 1985, after 15 years of employment by others, I started my own company and began custom installing and tweaking high-end two channel audio systems. Home Theater made its way onto the scene and my business grew rapidly, allowing me to open my own store in late 1989.

During that four year period before I opened the store I had lots of time to consider the variations in performance different cables exhibited under the extreme conditions presented by multi-zone systems and home theater systems.

In late 1989 we opened our store and began selling a wide variety of high-end audio equipment. As soon as I had some spare time I began working on a variety of prototypes for our first speaker and interconnect cable. I had been looking into damping, isolation, and ways to reduce radio frequency and electromagnetic entry into components. I realized these were issues that had been overlooked to some degree in modern cable design for home entertainment systems. We began looking at cables in new ways and realized that our philosophy had to be expanded. I wanted to address every identifiable shortcoming, while still building a truly musical product within the financial reach of most system owners. Tthe results speak for themselves, thousands of people use our products in every type of system imaginable.

I would have to say the cable industry is very healthy overall. There are many new categories of manufacturers now, we have the internet to thank for that. There are basically three types of cable companies in operation. First you have the big names that we are all familiar with. These companies continue to do the most advertising along traditional lines, when you pick up just about any audio magazine you’ll find these companies prominently displaying their products. Most of them build some very good products for the money. There are some drawbacks to the designs used due to the large volume of product sold. These include preset lengths, preset configurations, and the ability, or inability of dealers to terminate cables in a timely and effective manner. Most of these companies have their products manufactured for them in countries where labor costs are greatly reduced. The second group consists of what has been referred to as "boutique" cable manufacturers. These are companies that can offer more custom options in terms of configuration, lengths, and can make design changes on the run because they do the bulk of their construction and termination in house. These manufacturers often produce the absolute state-of-the-art cabling. Because this group has lower volume they can build a single cable many different ways to explore all the options. Where hand labor is out of the question for a really high volume cable manufacturer, it is the stock and trade of the "boutique" manufacturers and allows them to offer products rarely, if ever found in the product lineups of the big guys. The third group, I call the "generic manufacturers", owe their livelihood to the internet. The bulk of these individuals use off the shelf products from well-known manufacturers who produce bulk cabling for the professional marketplace. By professional, I mean television broadcast companies, recording studios, and the production end of the movie industry. They use materials and wire products that most people familiar with audio will recognize. This, and the generally lower prices of their products appeal to many cable purchasers. I think the internet has had a big effect on all three of the groups I’ve mentioned above. For the larger traditional companies it’ s just another avenue for advertising that allows even more people to see their products. For the "boutique" manufacturers it allows a more direct communication with customers, where they can inform people about their particular philosophies and construction techniques. Boutique manufacturers use the internet to create equality between themselves and larger companies. A good website minimizes the perceived difference between smaller companies with less resources, and larger companies with larger budgets for advertising. After all you’ve got to sell product to somebody, it isn’t producing great sound for anyone sitting in your manufacturing facility. Last but not least, the "generic manufacturers" use the internet like the "boutique" manufacturers.

Many people feel cable is overpriced, I don’t agree with that perception, but the generic manufacturers embrace that idea, that is their market. As to the really stratospherically priced products in the audio industry, there will always be buyers for the very best. In this category, like all items, some of these products represent the state-of-the-art, some are just fishing for people with deep pockets who don’t know any better. Fortunately, the latter are far and few. The bulk of these folks are making an effort to produce something that takes you as close to real music as possible. That requires a totally custom design, we all know about economy of scale, there is no such thing in this super esoteric category. Hence, the big price.

From a purchasers viewpoint, cables have to be priced with respect to their performance relative to other products in the same category. From a manufacturers viewpoint they have to be priced in a way that supports their continued viability in the marketplace. You can’t sell cables that people don’t realize exist. From a consumers standpoint it’s easy to forget the research and development, the marketing, the packaging, and all the other hidden costs involved in producing a viable product. Most, if not all companies have to make a large investment before they can even begin to sell the products. There are always individuals who will take advantage of the uninformed. The buyer must do some research to determine the value of the product being purchased.

With the advent of home theater, portable audio/video products, and computer systems, the quality of all cables is getting better. With the amount of competition in the marketplace, anybody who wants to remain in the business had better offer great products, great value, and exemplary customer service.

There are unscrupulous individuals in every industry. It isn’t difficult to see who they are if you look carefully. The most dangerous people you’ll meet in any industry are those who believe they know what they are doing, but in actuality, have very little real knowledge. There are questionable explanations about what makes one cable better than another. In our experience, the same rules apply to cables, that apply to the best components. Simplicity in design, precision construction, parts quality, noise rejection, and the ability to provide a high level of performance over a long period of time. These are the characteristics found in the very best components and cables.

Snake oil is a term that has been used by people who believe that only empirical evaluations have merit. Quantitative analysis outlines the basic parameters a cable has to meet. However, qualitative analysis (listening or viewing on a broad variety of components) is the only way to determine if a cable really enhances overall performance. This is the crux of the cable credibility issue, the controversy that has always permeated our industry. Measurements simply fail to describe how accurately a cable reproduces sound or images. Cables with excellent sound quality have the same basic electrical characteristics as lesser products, even though your ears tell you that the real-world performance is clearly better. As long as we have to rely on our own abilities to evaluate cable performance some people will always refer to cable manufacturers and their dealers as snake oil salesman.

There are more companies and individuals building cables than ever before. Although I think we’ll see the industry shrink to some degree in the future. At least the companies making analog cables. I fully expect that most signals will be passed through digital interfaces in the future. We’ve already seen that trend accelerating in most categories, particularly video.

Diversification is going to be critically important for cable manufacturers. Digital interfaces limit the number of cable types that will be necessary. Personally, I still prefer the sound of my turntable, but, if the rapid improvement of digital sound continues, the cable world will have to adapt appropriately .