The California Audio Show welcomed the debut showing of the eye-catching JIB line of cables. I say eye-catching because the diminutive sound system at one end of the room was intended solely to provide soft background music for a static display.

Made in Germany and China, these cables first arrived in Fremont, CA a few months ago. They are currently sold factory-direct on the Web, and await establishment of a dealer network. The beautiful 63-page, 8½" x 11", color catalog, complete with standard Chinese-authored English, was certainly enticing. Manager Allen Ong (left) and an associate are shown with the SB-004 speaker cable ($450 for 2.5m, $480 for 3m).