Looking for really fine cables at really low price

Rob,
Bill's Lampi (Big push pull tubes) vs Yami (DHT SET) sums it up effectively.

Hi Charles,
It is almost certain that I am going to the Rocky Mountain Fest, Oct 2-3. Yazaki-san will be there demo with DeVore 0/96 his SPEC Real Sound integrated as well as his turntable design. I believe/hope I will compare/contrast Lampizator/Yamamoto at that event. I trust you will be right with regard to my timbral listening bias, the Yamamoto will likely win out. Best, Rob

Al, You, my friend, are a genius! The lack of sound in one channel was due to the fact that I temporarily hooked up one leg of the left channel without stripping the insulation. There was a good reason why I did this, which completely escapes me now. I forgot to go back and strip that leg before powering up the amp. There was no short, which is my worst nightmare in dealing with unterminated stranded wire. I quickly realized I had no sound from that channel and quickly (like 10 seconds) turned off the amp to avoid operating the dynamo without a load on one side. At that point, it was the end of the day, and I was tired, sweaty, and hot. I had no idea where my multimeter was, so I figured I needed to shut things down and try again with a fresh start. Good decision.

So your second scenario appears to be the correct one. It is nice to know there was a reasonable physical explanation for what I heard, other than that Rob and Bill don't know what music sounds like. It is kind of funny, because the sound was so bad it was exactly what I would expect old low tech speaker wire to sound like. Bad enough that 5 seconds of music was enough to tell me something was very wrong.

Rob,
Yamamoto has such a small U.S. presence I'm surprised you'll be able to hear it at the show. What will it be paired with? Again I believe that you will like both DACs if they're in a good romm/system. RMAF is a very good show.
Charles,

Brownsfan,
Your 14ga wire should sound just fine. My Supras (somewhat similar in design) are 190 tinned strands coming in at 12ga and they sound wonderful. Let us know how it works out.

All the best,
Nonoise