In 1998, D'Addario & Company, Inc. acquired the Planet Waves line and it joined D'Addario's world-renowned family of musical instrument accessory brands. D'Addario envisioned the line as more than just accessories for guitarists, but for musicians as a whole. D'Addario's first major venture outside guitar-only accessories with the Planet Waves line was to design and develop a line of cables that would be truly transparent signal-transmitting devices, and virtually eliminate tonal alterations.

D'Addario'sPlanet Waves team studied the industry's cable-making procedures and identified that most suppliers were simply purchasing and assembling stock cables and connectors. Additional investigations found that suppliers had given little or no thought to the specific needs of each different cable application. After extensive testing, the Planet Waves team discovered that many of these stock cables had serious limitations. As a result, the lab began studying and researching the various causes of signal loss and degradation, microphonics (triboelectric noise), and mechanical connection failures.