Kimber Kable's unique braided construction and a radically different approach to cable design have remained largely unaltered over the past 40 years.

The design and functionality of the cables can be traced back to the mid-1970s when Ray Kimber, founder and owner of the business, was working in the pro sound and light industry in Los Angeles. While installing the first big discotheques, he discovered that noise generated by the lights was picked up by the speaker cable, which was acting as an antenna and injecting noise into the sound system.

Firstly, encasing the speaker cable in a steel conduit partly solved the issue. However, he discovered that this unintentionally resulted in lowering the audio fidelity due to the interaction with the cable's magnetic field.

Ray had the idea that counter-rotating sets of conductors would cancel the magnetic interaction and also reduce the noise pick-up. He was right. Also, he was pleasantly surprised at the improvement in perceived audio quality. It was this discovery that set him on the path to developing braided cable designs for the audio industry.

Today Kimber Kable produces an extensive range of speaker cables, analogue and digital interconnect cables and headphone cables for all levels of hi-fi system.

Russ Andrews first met Ray Kimber at the 1985 CES in Chicago and recognised the unique innovations Ray was making in cable construction and manufacture, and how it solved the same problems Russ had encountered during his own audio experiments.

Russ told StereoNET:

I was convinced that Ray's approach was solving fundamental problems that no one else had successfully managed to do. I knew we had to bring these cables to the UK and so started a relationship that is still going strong some 34 years later.

Today, Russ Andrews not only distributes the entire Kimber Kable range but also uses Kimber's braided cables in its own range of high-quality mains PowerKords.

Marking the 40th anniversary, Russ reflects on the growth of Kimber and the very close working relationship the two companies have had.

In 1979 Ray started with one product, the 4PR speaker cable. It was a revelation and is so fundamentally 'right' that it is still one of the biggest selling speaker cables in the world today – we must have supplied miles and miles of 4PR to UK audiophiles!

Visitors to the Russ Andrews website can now find out more about Kimber Kable at the dedicated Kimber Hub, created to coincide with the 40th anniversary.