A BETTER CONNECTION
Using advanced technologies to bring music alive TEXT: MARTIN PILKINGTON | PHOTOS: INTERNATIONAL AUDIO HOLDING
“When I entered this high-end audio field in the early 2000s, few people spoke about music and how it sounds, only about the size, placing and capacity of the equipment,” says Gabi Rijnveld, co-owner with husband Edwin of Dutch high-end audio manufacturer International Audio Holding and its brands Siltech and Crystal Cable. “Edwin’s an electronic engineer; I was a classical concert pianist - that makes a great match in the company and in life,” she continues. “We have a great balance between the technical side and the musical and artistic – Edwin’s a passionate engineer always seeking perfection, and I provide the musicality and design input.”
Pianist and pupil Edwin took over IAH in 1992, when Hungarian-born Gabi was still touring the world, fortunate enough to play with great artists 38 | Issue 48 | December 2017
like Claudio Abbado. When she stepped back from performing for a time and taught piano instead, one of her pupils was Edwin. The rest is rather romantic history.
Gabi & Edwin.
The parallel lines of engineering accuracy and musical brilliance meet in Siltech and Crystal Cable. “Our aim is to bring a live or near-live sound quality to people using our products,” she adds, “You’ll never get there totally, but Edwin as an engineer and I as a musician strive every day to get closer.”
Technology leads to the perfect cable The core products of Siltech and Crystal Cable are analog and digital audio cables used in high-end hifi systems. Gabi likens the significance of audio cables to tyres on a car: “Bad tyres mean poorer performance; it’s exactly the same with audio cables.” Most audio cables use copper, or for slightly better quality oxygen-free copper. Siltech has been at the forefront of using silver, a superior conductor that actually improves its performance as it ages, whereas copper deteriorates. They’ve developed a patented process that fills the gaps in silver’s crystalline structure with a tightly controlled amount of gold to improve performance further: “Regular silver could lead to a somewhat colder sound,” says Gabi, “but filling those gaps makes the signal passing smoother, the sound warmer, while keeping superb conductivity characteristics,”