Whatever happened to Straight Wire?

I have been a long time Straightwire owner. I moved up the line quite quickly after Steve Hill in a telephone conversations offered to allow me to sample the low end Encore and Maestro speaker cables. I did and sent them back as they weren't even as good as Kimber 8TC.

I took the plunge and moved up to the Serenades and never looked back. I followed up on the interconnect side and did my whole system in a combination of balanced and RCA. For my VPI TNT Turntable I moved up to the Virtuoso "R".

While the Kimber 8TC outperforms the bass attributes of the Serenade, all other sonic qualities don't compare.

Though your right, Steve and his company have for all intents and purposes fallen off the planet. I live in the NY metro area and I can;t find a straightwire dealer to be had!!! What a shame.

It's a shame. Straightwire was one of the original big boys. With a little proper marketing,( assuming the technology and innovation is there) they could probably get back into the mainstream again.

I've never tried Straightwire IC's but in my system the Maestro II speaker cables are more balanced and open with my Thiels than a long list of contenders mentioned above and then some. The top end is impressive, totally open, extended, and airy but not bright or splashy as some cables can be, especially with Thiels. They also have tons of low level detail in the midrange. The SW's just really surprised me!

I know Thiel uses SW for internal wire or used to, don't know if they still do, SW's web site is older than dirt. Surely, that can't be the connection! That would be too easy.

I believe the original Straightwire designer is the guy who spun off WireWorld. Sraightwire never really recovered from that.

I too use Thiel 3.6's and the bottom end with the Kimber 8TC is mind blowing via my Bryston 7b-sst's. Though in using the Serenade's I will sacrifice some of the very deep bottom for everything else they do so well in my room.

I don't know what is going on with Steve Hill and hopefully he is well. He is a transplanted New Yorker who moved to Florida. You know what they say about Florida, its for the "Dead and dying!" Hopefully Steve and his business are not among that group.