Audioquest Audioquest Audioquest
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Audioquest
History
AudioQuest was not so much founded as it was evolved. When Bill Low created AudioQuest in 1980 it was really just a small variation of the audio activities he had started in 1972. While at college in Oregon, Bill realized that instead of simply offering audio component recommendations to other students, he should sell the equipment. His small appointment-only business evolved from selling BSR turntables and Hitachi receivers in 1972, to Linn Sondek, Radford, Celestion and Yamaha (first dealer in the Northwest) in 1974. In 1975 his little shop was the largest Linn Sondek dealer in the US. By 1976, with college long over, the urge to move to California was irresistible. The retail business was passed on to a friend and Bill set himself up as a manufacturers¹ representative in northern California, an especially conservative market. Dealers were fond of saying: "If I don't already carry it, I obviously don't need it." It was difficult to even get a chance to demonstrate the superb equipment Bill was representing, which included Decca, Audionics, Koss Electrostatic, AEA, Dunlap Clarke, and Celestion among others. After six years inside the audio business, both as a retail proprietor and a manufacturers¹ representative, Bill once more started a by-appointment-only store out of his living room in Santa Monica. This time Bill made one small but very important decision Š he decided to make custom audio cable for his store. Audio cable became a visible subject in the US in 1976 when Polk Audio introduced a Japanese sourced cable under the name Cobra Cable. This high capacitance/low inductance litz cable encouraged some amplifiers into self-destruction, but it usually made systems sound better. By 1978, Polk, Bob Fulton, and Jonas Miller Sound had made audio cable an important subject for those at the leading edge of audio. Since the 1960s, Bill had appreciated the advantages of using better than average cable. In 1977 Bill bought a spool of the 12 awg lamp cord that Noel Lee (future "Head Monster") was selling to his dealers in northern California (Bill and Noel used to sub-rep each other's lines in the two California territories). In 1978, Bill and another small retailer cooperated in ordering a custom-made twisted pair litz speaker cable. In some ways Bill is embarrassed to remember this cable which he refers to as "original recipe" Š it had 435 strands per conductor and didn't use very good copper. However, as a starting point it was really very good. It clearly outperformed the Fulton Gold cable that was considered top-of-the-hill at that time. It was spiraled and it did not have any electrical contact between bare strands
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