Howard Sosna became interested in stereo
equipment at an early age, building speakers and Heathkit electronic
components for himself along the way. In 1990, Howard entered the
audio industry as a consultant for several well known high-end companies.
Joe Kubala has also been involved with audio equipment since college.
After graduating with an engineering degree, Joe became more involved
with the technical aspects of audio through an electronics course;
along with designing and bread-boarding a few DC power supplies
and amplifier circuits.
As audiophiles, both men have been involved with designing their
own listening rooms; including specifying construction materials
and techniques; selecting every component; and completely wiring
the rooms for stereo and surround systems themselves. Both rooms
are considered to be fine examples of high-end systems by those
who have experienced them.
Howard’s involvement in audio deepened when he started consulting.
His responsibilities ranged from setting up demo rooms for audio
shows, to being part of the design team for new product development.
During this time Howard became very aware of the influence of different
cabling on the performance of the various systems he was putting
together.
At about the same time, Howard began planning and building a new
home. As he considered his alternatives for how to cable both the
two-channel and surround portions of his system, Howard successfully
designed and constructed cables that out-performed the best wires
that he could purchase at the time by "thinking outside the
box".
On several occasions over the next few years, Howard became aware
of new performance levels being established in the cable industry.
Once again, he found a way to equal or better those performance
levels with his designs. At this point, the projects were personal
in nature, but a fire was being lit inside Howard at the possibility
of bringing the designs to market.
That fire was fueled further when the ideas that would turn out
to be the foundation for OptimiZ™ Architecture came to
Howard when he was designing new power cords for his amplifiers.
Once again, his "outside the box" designs out-performed
the best commercially available cables, but this time by a wider
margin.
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It was about this time that Joe and Howard, who had become friends,
started to assist each other with improvements to their respective
systems, becoming intimately familiar with both in the process.
These changes included equipment, room treatments, speaker placement,
and all the things that go into optimizing a system.
Howard began to share his experiences with cables, and his thoughts
about the possibility of bringing them to other audiophiles. At
this point, both men decided to "go for it" and put all
their available energy into continuing to develop the concepts which
would serve as the foundation for the OptimiZ™
Architecture.
Joe and Howard began a long process of building cable after cable,
using different materials, wire gauges and number of conductors
in different combinations and geometries. Each interconnect, speaker
cable or power cord was carefully listened to in both systems –
one all solid state, the other all tubes. Some changes moved performance
in the right direction, others did not.
It was plainly evident from the performance of the new designs
that they were performing differently – in fact, were out-performing
every cable they were compared with. In one blind test with an accomplished
audiophile, several mid-generation cable designs were tested against
some very expensive and well-respected reference cables. The extensive
sessions confirmed that performance of the new designs was real.
Further confirmation that things were headed in the proper direction
came from several audio industry legends Howard had met and worked
with during his consulting days. Again the performance advantages
were verified and ideas were shared that would further enhance the
geometry and performance of the cables.
After additional refinement and testing, the final design was arrived
at. Named OptimiZ™ Architecture,
this new patent-pending design serves as the foundation for the RevolutionZ™ Series of cables; cables which are among the best performing
in the world today. |
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| Joe Kubala |
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| Howard Sosna |
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