Company Timeline

Early 90s

Three guys start experimenting with using Teflon tubes from brake systems as dieletric for silver conductors – at the time all cables came with the polymer dielectric directly extruded onto the conductor. The air dielectric method reduced the interaction between the conductor and the dielectric significantly. The experiments lead to the first Argento cable that was simply called “Silver.”

Mid 90s

To make the cables accessible to a larger audience copper version of the silver cable was introduced. This cable was based on lacquered copper conductors but everything else remained the same.

Late 90s

Experiments with mechanical damping of the audio cables was conducted and the conclusion was that damping had a very significant effect on the sound quality and the result was the first Argento cable that was not an air dielectric cable. Instead the dielectric was a mixture of materials that was named VDM – short for Vibration Damping material. The conductors remained the same as in the “Silver” cable but sound quality went up significantly.

Early 2000s

The VDM Reference is introduced to and the Hong Kong audiophile circle takes a significant liking to the product.

2003

First version of the Serenity cables is introduced. In addition to the Serenity there is also a “Serenity reference” and a “Serenity Master Reference” (SMR). The SMR quickly becomes a popular product in Hong Kong and Singapore and the first US distributor is appointed.

2005

Ulrik Madsen becomes the sole owner of Argento Audio ApS and immediately commences the development of the first generation of Argento XLR and RCA connectors as well as the first cable to rank above the Master Reference – The Extreme Edition (EE).

2006

The first generation of EE cables are introduced. Argento cables are introduced in South Korea.

2007

The Flow and Flow Master Reference power cords are introduced and are an immediate success, which allows us to finish the development of the XLR and RCA connectors as well as the interconnectors and the speaker cables for the Flow and Flow master Reference lines. Argento cables are introduced in the Russian market through New Coliseum.

2008

The Flow interconnectors are introduced at a price less than half of the Serenity Master reference and provides comparable performance in some systems and even better performance in most. In a year that is synonymous with the great financial crisis, a cable with significantly improved price/performance ratio was exactly what the market needed, and Argento had a good year in 2009 despite the macro-economic backdrop.

2009

The first prototype of the Argento speaker binding post was completed, and the first CAD drawings of the Flow power distributor were also completed. Further we started the development of the copper cables that would later become the first cables from our sister company Organic Audio.

2010

Organic Audio is launched, and we sell approximately 1000 pieces within the first 18 months. Development of the first Argento DIN connector commences.

2011

Several iterations of DIN connector prototypes were made and evaluated but unfortunately, we must reject all of them for different reasons.

2012

The Flow power distributor is launched. Introducing a conceptual simplicity that means that the entire power distributor is made from only 5 components! Two insulators and 3 conductive components – one for ground, one for live and one for neutral. ZERO breaks in the conductive path and completely uniform distance from input to all outputs.

The FMR Phono cable is launched with the first and to this day only DIN connector with contacts made from pure silver.

2013

We start development of the next generation of the Extreme Edition cables.

2014

In the beginning of the year with start shipping the Organic Reference cables sold under the Organic Audio brand.

We move the company to our current location.

2015

The 2nd generation of the EE XLR and EE speaker cable is launched, and we start designing the connectors for the power EE power cables.

2016

All the development hours go to the EE power connectors.

2017

The Argento company building burns to the ground in January due to a malfunctioning air compressor and we basically lose everything.

During all of Q1 we are unable to manufacture anything. During April temporary buildings are established, and we slowly get manufacturing with a backlog that takes several months to complete.

During the downtime in Q1 we reach the final iteration of the EE power connectors and prototypes are manufactured later in the year.

Fortunately, the insurance company agrees to pay for the building and our stock in Q2 and we can start the design process with the extremely skilled help of DANØ Arkitektur (the Argento building is the third picture from the top)

2018

We launch the EE power cord and it is very well received. We get approval from the local authorities for the new company building and construction commences in late 2018.

2019

The new company building is finished, and we move in during August. A very frustrating period in the temporary building is finally over.

2020

The development of the EE power distributor commences building on the ideas of the original Flow power distributor from 2012. Further we start the development of the 2nd generation of the RCA connector.

2021

The first internal version of the 2nd generation RCA connector is finished and development of the 2nd generation XLR connector and the first Argento banana connector commences along with a new cable line that will later become the Flow Ultima. The first EE power distributor is delivered in Q4.

2022

The development of the EE wall socket is started based on the EE power distributor.

2023

The first EE wall socket is delivered and the first functional prototype of the 2nd generation XLR connectors and the new banana connector are made and tested with what will become the Flow Ultima cable.

2024

We are moving toward launching the new Flow Ultima line which constitutes the biggest change to the Argento products since the introduction of the first Flow cable 18 years ago. As usual when making many changes at the same time many small things go wrong, and we end up delaying the launch of the cable until 2025 to make sure everything works as planned.

2025

We deliver the first Flow Ultima cables to customers in Q2 and The Absolute Sound writes a stunning review of the cables. On top of the review the Flow Ultima is also given a “product of the year reward 2026” by TAS.

The Role of 6N Purity Silver

At the heart of every Argento Extreme Edition cable is a simple conviction: the signal should encounter nothing but the purest possible path. That’s why we use 6N purity silver—99.9999% pure, with exceptionally long crystal structures—for every conductor and every contact point in the chain. This level of purity isn’t a luxury flourish; it’s the foundation for consistent, unbroken signal flow.

In high-end audio, you’ll often see bold claims about “single-crystal” conductors. The truth is more nuanced. While silver can begin as a single crystal, the drawing process required to form a usable conductor inevitably creates microscopic fractures. What actually matters is maximizing crystal length and structural continuity—an engineering goal Argento pursues relentlessly. Our long-crystal 6N silver reduces boundaries that can introduce grain noise, micro-distortion, and tonal irregularities.

Just as critical is what happens at the connectors, the overlooked bottleneck in many premium cables. It makes little sense to feed ultra-pure conductors into brass or copper-alloy terminations, yet this is standard practice throughout the industry. Argento refuses that compromise. Every EE connector—whether spade, XLR pin, RCA contact, or IEC blade—is made from the same annealed 6N silver as the conductors themselves. This creates one continuous metallurgical chain from source to destination, eliminating the mismatches in resistance and energy transfer that often occur at junction points.

Annealing plays a crucial role. By softening the silver rather than leaving it cold-worked and brittle, we achieve higher contact pressure, more stable long-term interfaces, and lower resistance at the physical connection. The result is a more coherent, unrestrained signal—preserving microdetail, dynamics, and tonal integrity without relying on exotic coatings or marketing fantasy.

In the Extreme Edition line, the commitment to pure, long-crystal 6N silver is not an embellishment. It’s the engineering backbone that allows the rest of the design—the VDM insulation, carbon-loaded housings, and custom CNC-machined architecture—to reveal what your system is truly capable of.

VDM: The anti-vibration solution from Argento Audio

Today, virtually all cables use some kind of polymer for insulation because it is very cheap and there is a general belief that as long as the dielectric constant is low, everything is good. Of course there is some truth — but only some — since air does sound better than Teflon and Teflon does sound better than PVC.

VDMTM — short For Vibration Damping Material — is the Argento answer to address two well known yet insufficiently covered problems in cable design.

  • How should a cable be insulated to avoid shorts and corrosion?
  • How can one avoid the small air and structural-born vibrations that affect cable performance?

During our long years of exploration in various solutions, we found that all polymer dielectrics share the same sort of characteristic sound with more or less slightly raised highs and a slight thinness in the midrange. This could to some degree be relieved by choosing copper instead of silver and thicker conductors, but both these “cures” decrease the sound quality in several other ways, making the sound heavy, closed-in and a lot less dynamic.

The conclusion is that none of the usual “solutions” — plastic, air, teflon, composite materials, etc. — were the correct answer to the problem, either because they were simply inoperable or they created other issues when removing the problems caused by the vibrations.

Furthermore, we concluded that the artifacts usually heard in the high frequencies with polymer and air insulated cables were caused both by vibrations and the use of polymers.

The result of this search is VDMTM, a proprietary compound of mixed materials presenting unique elasticity and damping characteristics at room temperature as well as optimal dielectric properties.

Finding an efficient way to apply the VDMTM proved as difficult a task as inventing the material, which we overcame with a multi-stage process involving heating and injecting stages among other technical steps.

As a result of our efforts, we are proud to offer our new VDMTM in every Argento Audio cable, making available to you the true epitome of perfect electrical insulation and mechanical damping.