Looking for really fine cables at really low price

Hi Grannyring, with speaker cables and power cords, low inductance and low resistance are considered good. Heavier gauge wire reduces resistance and effective geometry can reduce inductance. A star-quad geometry is considered to lower inductance compared to a twisted pair and may also offer benefits by reducing the amount of stray magnetic field pickup.

I first heard about star-quad geometry from Jon Risch and Chris VenHaus (before he started VH Audio) over on Audio Asylum years ago. The geometry consists of twisting four wires together in an even twist that is tight enough to maintain shape when bent in normal use, but not so tight as to over-stress the conductors. The "star" part comes when you cross-connect the wires. In other words, connect one pair of wires that are opposite (not next to) each other for the positive polarity and the other opposite pair for the negative side. Chris VenHaus uses this geometry for his well-regarded Flavor 4 DIY power cable as illustrated by his star-quad DIY bulk power cable.

I believe braiding can have a similar effect in lowering inductance and is successfully used by Kimber, HomeGrown Audio, and most spectacularly by Jena Labs. Back in the early days of these websites, many folks successfully braided CAT 5 cable to make speaker cables. The multiple small gauge solid core braided wires is a theme used by Chris VenHaus in his well-regarded Chela cable and by HomeGrown Audio in their top-of-the-line X-32 silver speaker cables. I believe Jena's wire is stranded, as is Kimber's. Unfortunately, I have little experience with braiding cables.

I have a straight run from speakers to amp - no braiding or twisting and it sounds pretty damn good. Will I realize an additional benefit twisting the + and - around each other from speaker to amp?

It's questionable, to me. My Supras run parallel to each other with nary a twist and with barely any separation between them but then, they were designed that way.

I realize it's a completely different make of cable but it's similar in concept so maybe it's not necessary.

All the best,
Nonoise

Jeff Day states on his Blog, not necessary. You can basically do it either way. I twisted mine.

I now have two runs per pole of the WE wire. I twisted them and put a nice black Tech Flex netting over them. I found one run to sound very good. With burn in however they were a little, just a little , too tilted up in the highs after 50 hours or so. My system is very resolving however so any small change is quickly revealed.

I found two runs provided more base weight and improved overall body and tonal balance. I will report back after the second set has burned in for 50 hours. Thus far a nice improvement in my system vs. just one run of the WE wire.