Cables - When Did it All Start?

In my experience, Gold-ends were the first ever "fru fru" interconnects, circa 1975. They had a thick, black rubbery outer insulation, coil spring strain reliefs and gold plated, solid metal RCA's: basically everything the OEM and Radio Shack cables lacked. Then along came the monster.

Most of the science behind high end audio cables was originally pioneered by P.T. Barnam.

My first audiophile cable purchase also occurred about this time, (mid 1970’s).

Mine was the Peterson Litz, a tiny diameter interconnect with a jewel like jacket and gold RCA connections. I found out later it was manufactured from surplus military aircraft communications cable.

Steve McCormack was the culprit that introduced me to this high end cable. I clearly remember being confused as to why it effected performance (wire is wire).

Unfortunately for me, the Peterson was soon defeated by later versions from Peterson, followed by Cardas and Audioquest (among others). Fast forward to today and find my personal bank account empty, due to the stunning performance offered by Purist Audio Design.

Considering the evolution of speaker drivers, power supplies, digital players and phono cartridges, it was only a matter of time for high performance cables to be recognized as components instead of accessories.

I remember buying a pair of "Cobra Cable" speaker wires back in 1976. (I'm not sure if this was the actual name of the cables.) They were multi-stranded thin gauge lacquer insulated wires (green and orange to represent "+" and "-") woven in a 90 degree multi-layering patterning. The construction was supposed to reduce capacitance. Looked real cool, too, since the outer insulation was clear! I was into pretty good mid-fi, back then, and these cables made a big difference in the fidelity of the mid's and hi's, over lamp zip cord!

For me it was AudioTechnica interconnects in 1977. "....whadda mean they'll improve my system?" Yikes!! I wish I had the money I have spent on wire. It would probably pay for half of my new PT Turbo.