TBT: The Big And The Small Of High-End Audio

Many years ago, my previous cable company, XLO Electric, was nominated for the prestigious Plunkett Award, DuPont’s annual prize for the innovative use of Teflon, named after the man who invented it. Perhaps as no surprise, the Award that year didn’t go to us, but to people who had done something of far greater world consequence than just making better-sounding audio cables. Even so, just the fact of having been nominated proved to be of considerable immediate and even long-term value: Besides its obvious adverting and promotional benefits, we also gained access to information and (not then and sometimes never commercially available) test-batch products that helped us to improve both the performance and the manufacturability of our cables. As a writer’s disclaimer, RSX is my new cable company, having re-established certain prior connections, also enjoys a similar materials advantage today.