George Cardas

George Cardas (born August 30, 1943) is an American inventor, designer and entrepreneur.

Early life and education

Cardas was born in San Francisco, California. He studied at Gonzaga University and Pomona College.

Career

Cardas worked for General Telephone (Verizon) in the 1960s doing telephone installation, central office maintenance and transmission line design. In 1969, he left to pursue a career in racing. Over the next few years he had many inventions relating to engine design and automotive racing fuels.

In 1977, Cardas returned to the phone company, managing the conversion of electo-mechanical switching telephone offices to digital switching.

After the telephone company's conversion to digital, he applied his knowledge of transmission lines and metals to the world of high fidelity sound, with inventions in the areas of transmission lines, cables connectors, microphones, electronics and loudspeakers. Cardas' cable designs incorporated Litz conductors, in which each strand in a multi-strand conductor is insulated. These conductors were composed of multiple gauges (AWG) of copper wire, with each successive gauge having a 1:1.618 ratio between itself and the next. This use of the Golden Ratio in the design of an electrical conductor was granted.

Cardas' Matched Propagation patent addressed a core problem (identified at the turn of the 19th century) intrinsic to all transmission cables. It matches the signal propagation velocity of the conductor to that of the cable dielectric using a progressive layered golden ratio conductor geometry.

George Cardas started Cardas Audio, a high-end audio cable manufacturer, in the 1970s in California. As of 2018 it has 16 employees and is based in Bandon, Oregon.