Two new companies have formed in recent weeks to bring audiophile cable and connector products to market.

Stuart Marcus of Vampire Wire and Sound Connections International and Chris Sommovigo of Illuminati and Stereovox say they have joined forces to design, manufacture, and market "precision audio and video connectors" under the new moniker "Xhadow."

The new partners report that they initially teamed up in reaction to what they perceived as a dearth of XLR connector options for high-end cabling systems, noting that "even the most expensive audiophile balanced cables were being terminated with sub-$3 industrial-grade XLRs that are evidently not up to lofty audiophile standards."

As a result, they are now officially releasing the first of their audio connectors, which has been named the "Precision XLR." Sommovigo says, "We recognized a niche to fill. The Precision XLR was a perfect project because it was the single most-neglected audio connector on the market. Even AC power cord caps and IEC connectors were reinvented before the XLR. The Xhadow Precision XLR will provide cable OEMs with a clearly superior option for up-market catalogs, and we believe that it will mean significant performance gains for those products."

Xhadow says it also plans to release an entire collection of products this year including chassis-mount XLRs, RCA plugs and chassis-mount female RCA connectors, banana plugs, spades, and binding posts. Marcus comments, "We translated some of what we developed in the XLR for other types of connectors. These designs are simple, elegant, and precisely manufactured from pure high-performance materials that are machined—not forged, stamped, or cast—and we believe that is very important for precision signal transfer."

Xhadow reports that the entire scheduled first run of XLR plugs has already been pre-sold to two audiophile cable manufacturers.

A new manufacturer of specialized audio and video cables, Crystal Cable, has been formed in Holland and will be distributing its products in US markets shortly. Recognizing that bulky audiophile cables put off many buyers who are hooking up expensive equipment, the new company says it has found a way to create high performance "micro-sized" cables as a result of advanced research in aerospace engineering.

Crystal says that its cables utilize a coaxial design, using very thin micro wires with a transparent outer jacket. Crystal's Gabi van der Kley (who is also a trained concert pianist) comments that her company uses a special metallurgic process when making the bare wire. "We have two laboratories developing the best available 'melts,' which are different for audio and video cables. For audio cables we use pure silver and gold wire, for our video, the material is silver-plated copper with a carbon layer."

The company also claims that due to its use of Kapton, PEEK, and other materials, its products have "the strongest shielding on the market—literally hundreds of times better than competing cables. The signal cannot be affected by stray signals and noise from cell phones, lighting, computers, or other electronics. Now, silent passages in music or on a DVD are truly silent."

van der Kley adds, "We are convinced we will have a huge worldwide market for this combination of compact design and specialized technology. We are working with experienced distributors, plan to advertise aggressively, and will continue developing our technology."

Crystal says it has a full range of audio cables including balanced and unbalanced interconnects, multi-channel cables (6 audio + 1 data channel in a single jacket), single and bi-wired speaker cables, power cables, and digital cables. For video, the company will have component cables, DVI, FireWire, and "in the very near future" HDMI cable. The products will be distributed in the US starting in April by The American Audiophile Network.