JA - On to your question. Our first speaker wire, including the 1978 CES where we introduced the 03, was home-brew made from #0 stranded welding cable configured for lowest conventional problems. It measured well and looked impressive. Jim was also a skeptic by nature as well as we all being over-booked for time to explore elements like wire, which was a brand new arena at the time. It was probably spring CES 1978 that Ray Kimber showed us his prototype $1K / pair foot braided 6-9s silicone sealed, jacketless cable. We made a double-blind comparison, including measurements, between our welding cable and Ray's new wire. The conventional measurements were inconclusive, but certainly our welding cable didn't exhibit big problems. The listening test was not subtle. Ray's wire blew everyone away. Guests included the editor of Audio Magazine (professional journal). Details aside, we developed an ongoing relationship with Kimber.
We also developed a relationship with Bill Low who later founded AudioQuest, and his products were always in our evaluation mix. Noel Lee of Monster Cable was in our mix, and Monster branded and sold Jim's patented user-selectable load low-output moving coil headamp. The Monster Cable products never made the cut for us,somehow including distortion mechanisms that masked the music. An important ally became Dave Salz and Steven Hill of StraightWire (together at the time) who became the distributor for the ultra ITT wire that we used. StraightWire developed teflon jackets, polished drawing dies and other leading edge technologies. It is possible that we got best pricing from SW because those guys claim that hearing the Thiel 03a is what made them decide to pursue high-end audio as their career.
There were other wires, winners and losers in our context, but I don't clearly remember the brands. I do remember that when Bruce Brisson introduced his Music Interface Technology cables and tried to interest us, their multiple samples contained defects, either of design or execution. We didn't go there. I also remember in the mid 80s, my opinion diverged from Jim's about "best wire". I included the teenage girl contingent in my comparisons and Jim developed an attitude of himself being the arbiter of choice. (Jim had begun smoking before he was a teenager and I believe he didn't hear high frequency anomalies as problems. Just sayin'.)
I left in the mid 90s and don't know much about external wire thereafter. I do know that StraightWire's best 18 gauge 3/inch twisted pair in teflon remained the internal hookup wire. The coil wire was by then sourced by Rudy at Acoustacoil who was winding all our coils by then. Ultra-best wire became unavailable after the space projects closed. But Thiel continued to use best-of-available. I remember reading some reviews where Thiel used Goertz Flat Wire to develop the 3.7 (or perhaps an earlier speaker). I never remember reading of Cardas or Transparent wire although Jim had relationships with Karen @ Transparent via Kathy in industry politics as well as with George Cardas. I heard that Jim experimented with silver wire, plated and solid, but its sonic signature was so different as to necessitate a choice based on likely user selection. Thiel's price-class was always modest and silver wire is in a different league, he went with copper.
That's about all I remember. We routinely evaluated new wire configurations and brands and most of them were judged as overpriced and compromised. We were dumbfounded by the margins we saw in the wire sector of the industry. Dick Olsher and Jim had a mutually respectful association. We thought our stable of commentators and reviewers to be first-rate in their approach and understandings.
