Jacks, plugs and switches for the communications trade.

Switchcraft was founded in Chicago in 1946. The company’s own history says Switchcraft, Inc. “was established in 1946 to manufacture jacks, plugs, and switches, mainly for the communications industry,” in an original plant on West Diversey in Chicago. It moved to a larger building on North Halsted Street in 1948 and, in 1958, to a 185,000-square-foot plant on North Elston Avenue, which the company says is still its headquarters and the largest of its three manufacturing locations.

For its first three decades it was independent. In 1977, the company says, it was bought by Raytheon and ran as an independent subsidiary in Raytheon’s commercial division for twenty years. It says that during this period it moved towards vertical integration, “for cost effective manufacturing in the United States,” and expanded into harsh-environment connectors, the sealed parts used outdoors and in industrial equipment. In 1997, when Raytheon decided to concentrate on defence and divested its commercial holdings, Switchcraft was sold to its management and a private-equity company, according to the same history, which does not name the investor.

Two years later, in 1999, Switchcraft bought Conxall, a maker of circular connectors and cable assemblies in Villa Park, Illinois, to widen its range of harsh-environment products. The company’s own pages give the size of Conxall’s plant as 32,000 square feet on one page and 35,000 on another; both describe it as close to the Chicago works, specialising in custom cable assemblies. The two names now appear together on the website, signed “Switchcraft and Conxall.”

Jacks, patchbays and the small XLR.

Switchcraft’s products sit inside other people’s equipment and racks rather than on a shop shelf. Its catalogue is organised into jacks and plugs; audio, video and data patchbays; connectors; moulded cable assemblies; switches; and audio boxes, devices and adapters. The company says it has “over 5,000 standard products and thousands of variations,” sold through manufacturers’ representatives and independent distributors, and that it supplies the audio, video, telecommunications, computer, medical, military, appliance, transportation and instrumentation industries.

In professional audio the name is tied to the XLR-type connector. English Wikipedia’s article on the XLR connector says that after the original Cannon design, “the Switchcraft corporation manufactured compatible connectors, followed by the Neutrik company,” the maker profiled in our Neutrik guide. The same article credits Switchcraft with first devising the mini-XLR, also known as the Tini-QG or TQG, now used on compact gear such as wireless-microphone beltpacks, and notes that Switchcraft’s older six-pin design adds a centre pin to the standard five-pin layout, unlike Neutrik’s later pattern.

Its part numbers have become a shorthand of their own. Wikipedia notes the company’s TA3 and TA4 prefixes for in-line mini connectors and TB3 and TB4 for panel-mount versions. The company’s product listings also include QG panels for rack installations, “Tini” plugs, and video patchbays in several rack sizes for broadcast facilities.

The company presents engineering as part of what it sells. It describes an on-site toolroom, 3D CAD modelling and SLA and SLS prototyping, an environmental test lab for salt spray, humidity, life cycle, shock and vibration, and products built to approvals including UL, CSA, VDE and IP68. It says it specialises in “quick-turn, low-volume, custom-engineered harsh environment products” using its round, sealed connectors, and that if a part is not in its catalogue, “ask and we will build it for you.”

Connectors, cable and the signal chain.

Cables and connectors are the least visible part of a studio or stage rig, but engineers know the names on them. The seven makers in this guide come from six countries.

Two are Japanese. Mogami Wire & Cable, founded in 1957, is based in Shiojiri, Nagano, and has been a subsidiary of Oki Electric Cable since 2015, its website says. Canare was founded in Nagoya in 1970 by Kimio Kawamoto and now has its head office in Shin-Yokohama; its American arm says it listed on the Tokyo and Nagoya stock exchanges in 2006.

Switchcraft was established in Chicago in 1946 to make jacks, plugs and switches. Its own history says HEICO Corporation acquired it in 2011, and that its Chicago headquarters is the largest of its three manufacturing sites.

In Europe, Neutrik was founded in 1975 by Bernhard Weingartner with two investors and is based in Schaan, Liechtenstein, according to German Wikipedia. Sommer Cable, a private company, was founded in 1999 by Rainer Blanck and Friedhelm Sommer in Straubenhardt, at the edge of the Black Forest. Gotham AG, which says it has worked in professional audio since 1958, is based in Dietikon, near Zurich. Van Damme is the cable brand of VDC Trading of Tufnell Park, London, which says Niall Holden and Marcus DeFigueiredo started it in 1987 and that Holden has been its sole owner since 1994.

Their manufacturing claims differ in scope: Mogami’s American distributor says every foot of its cable is made in Nagano, while Sommer Cable claims “Made in Germany” for particular lines.

This guide sets out what can be checked about each brand — who founded it, who owns it, and what it says about where its products are made — and marks clearly what rests only on the company’s own word.

A Chicago maker inside a Florida-based group.

Since 2011 Switchcraft has belonged to HEICO Corporation, the aerospace and electronics group based in Hollywood, Florida, whose shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange. HEICO’s annual report for fiscal 2012 says that on November 22, 2011 it acquired Switchcraft, Inc., through its HEICO Electronic subsidiary, by buying all of the stock of the parent company, Switchcraft Holdco, Inc., for about $142.7 million, net of cash acquired, paid principally from its revolving credit facility. HEICO placed it in its Electronic Technologies Group and described it as “a leading designer and manufacturer of high performance, high reliability and harsh environment electronic connectors and other interconnect products.” A HEICO press release of December 14, 2011, already referred to “the recently completed acquisitions of 3D Plus SA and Switchcraft, Inc.”

Where the products are made is central to how the brand presents itself. Its website header reads “Proudly made in USA,” and the company says that “molding, stamping, plating, machining, and assembly are done in the United States, specifically at our 185,000 square foot Chicago facility,” with most components produced in-house. It also says that “a second manufacturing facility in Inchon, Republic of South Korea supports customers in the Far East,” and that parts are “fully automated, semi-automated or hand-assembled in Chicago or Inchon.” Together with Conxall’s plant in Villa Park, those are the sites the company names. These are its own statements; we have not seen an independent account of which parts are made where.

Its tone is unapologetically industrial. “While it is fashionable to disregard quality and chase low price manufacturers overseas,” its capabilities page says, customers who stray “always come back to Switchcraft,” and its pages close with the line “There is no substitute for Switchcraft quality and performance!”

For a design guide, Switchcraft shows how a component maker builds a brand out of part numbers, plant size and a home city rather than consumer advertising. Compare Neutrik, which followed it into XLR-type connectors, and Shure, another audio name founded in Chicago. For this guide we use black, nickel grey and a deep red with a condensed sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Switchcraft’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.