Rewind to the early 1970s. We had no audiophile cables. Let’s start this conversation with speaker cables.

We ran 16AWG and that was THAT. I remember talking to Bill Johnson of ARC in my shop in 1977. He was of the opinion that 16AWG was better than 14AWG, because 14AWG sounded more muddled.

Bigger Wire

Robert Fulton was an early proponent of larger wire. I had a pair of his Model Js at the time and considered his opinion. He sold what we might refer to as welding wire. He thought it only sounded good in certain lengths, like 57” or multiples of that. That made no sense. I mention this to put another opinion of the day on the table.

To me… it was ridiculous to buy wire that couldn’t be terminated in banana plugs or spade lugs easily. I wasn’t interested in the Fulton cable. I did sell 16AWG in a SHOTGUN (combining both conductors to behave as one larger one) configuration. It was inexpensive and clearly better than a single run, regardless of what Bill said. The wire itself was pliable and could be terminated in spades or bananas. Hence as of 1977, the shotgunned 16AWG was our wire of choice.

FF to 1979. The cable world was evolving. Bigger is better is always an easy sell. Monster Cable played on that premise, complete with a jacket that magnified the appearance of how thick the wire looked. It was like getting a 6 oz beer in a trick glass that made it look bigger! I never did buy Monster Cable.

Kimber Kable 1979

Kimber Kable was born in 1979. I was an immediate adopter. After getting some samples it was clearly… more CLEAR sounding than just running fat wire.

Kimber’s Kable (cable) had four brown jackets and four black jackets. It was called FOUR PAIR. There were ten wires in each of the jackets. The brown and black jackets were braided to eliminate RFI. Braiding in this manner provided cleaner sound than just running 80 parallel wires.

You could hear that the Kimber 4 PAIR had better resolution than Monster Cable, or shotgunned 16awg. It could be cut to any length. You could easily affix bananas or spades. We were flying with Kimber Kable.

Kimber soon offered EIGHT PAIR wiring, which was double the 4 PAIR. The sound was much the same with a tad heavier bass. If you had speakers with big bass capabilities, sure, 8 PAIR made more sense than 4 PAIR.

Braiding

Virtually every cable company and his brother learned from Kimber that this BRAIDING technique provided a distinct sonic advantage. Everyone followed suit, as they should have.

I chose to keep my business with Kimber. Ray Kimber introduced the concept to us. He builds in the USA (Utah) and is an owner operator. By the way, I’m writing this in 2024 and this is still the case, 45 years later!

As I mentioned, many other companies started braiding cable. A few did it themselves. Most just buy cable from China and have their logo printed on it. I’ve stuck with Ray.

VS = Variable Strand

As Kimber Kable worked with wire, they discovered that any thickness of wire has an endemic sonic signature. It wasn’t long before Kimber offered a VS (Variable Strand) upgrade line of cable, that they dubbed VS.

With VS, within each jacket, there would be seven wires. But instead of all seven being the same size, Kimber ran a variances of sizes so no sonic signature would predominate.

The VS technology was a subtle improvement in smoothness, compared to running wire of all the same size. At this point in time the family of wire used polyethylene jackets.

Teflon

Kimber introduced Teflon as a jacket upgrade that made another slight improvement in isolation/clarity. We began to sell 4TC, 8TC and 12TC.

PAIR Series Upgraded

In 2021 Kimber rolled the VS technology into its 4 PAIR and 8 PAIR models. It was a nice, noticeable upgrade for virtually no upcharge. The poly jacket is still used as it provides the point of diminishing returns performance. Even though Kimber kept the names 4 PAIR and 8 PAIR, as of 2021 this series was VS in construction and performance. Sweet!

Batteries

If you’ve been an audiophile for many years you might remember when batteries (!) were introduced into the construction of the cable. The theory was that the battery would help dynamic range. There was a little something to that. The problem was, no two batteries are the same to begin with. They age differently and you never knew how old they were. Who could remember if/when to change them?

Carbon

Ray Kimber kept his eye on the ball. He was working on a passive (no dang batteries!) way to help the music sound more dynamic with superior transient response. His R&D took over 20 years to lock down. But when he got it- it was a HOME RUN! He dubbed this new line of cable, no surprise, CARBON. It debuted in 2019.

The Carbon speaker cable starts as high purity copper run in VS technology. What’s superior about Carbon is the way it is configured.

With Carbon the wire itself is covered with a carbon factor. The carbon factor is CONDUCTIVE. It measures about 6% conductive. The carbon material is then covered with Teflon. The result is surprising and downright EXCITING if you have a resolving system to show you the advantages.

The good news is, you don’t have to have an uber expensive system to hear the advantage of running Carbon speaker cable. If you have resolving speakers like Magnepans or Brystons for about $3k, and a cut above amplifier like Atoll, Bryston or Mac- you’re a prime candidate to benefit from Carbon speaker wire.

The advancement in Carbon’s performance is first of all, in faster transient response. Plucked strings on guitars, hammers in a piano and the minutia of drum kit sounds all are purveyed with more nuance with Carbon. Human voices are less veiled. Just as importantly, dynamic contrast is improved. The benefit of faster response with more impactful dynamics- just makes music more intimate and FUN to listen to in your home.

Carbon speaker cable costs real money, but isn’t INSANE. It’s not audiophile jewelry. You buy it for sonic improvement, not prestige.

  • Two (right/left) six foot runs of 8 PAIR with Kimber SBAN banana plugs runs $312.
  • Two (right left) six foot runs of Carbon 8 with Kimber SBAN banana plugs runs $1320.
  • Two (right/left) six foot runs of Carbon 16 with Kimber SBAN banana plugs runs $2520.

Take a look at our Testimonials yellow tab at the bottom of our home page. You’ll see MANY raves on how Kimber Carbon has improved customers’ systems.

Carbon Interconnects

Everything that you’ve read above about what Carbon does for speaker wire, holds true for interconnects. The technology is the same. Carbon’s conductive nature benefits interconnects as well.

  • .5m Carbon interconnects (RCA or XLR) $510
  • 1m Carbon interconnects (RCA or XLR) $620

So yes, Carbon Kables, whether speaker or interconnects, run more $ than something less. But the money isn’t crazy. If you have a highly resolving system, please upgrade to the Carbon Kables. Your system doesn’t have to be wildly expensive. It just has to be revealing enough to benefit.

For me, that magic number is about $5k. If you have Magnepan MG 1.7i or Bryston A3s, and an Atoll IN100 integrated or higher- you’re all set to appreciate the benefits of Carbon Kable.