Looking for really fine cables at really low price

Jet, look at Jeff Day's blog/thread on the WE IC's as there is a link to "Take Five Audio" for Belden braided tube shielding. They offer various sizes. I used 1/4-1/3 inch as 1/2 inch would be too big. It does expand a little. Hard to work with this stuff. I soldered a 14 gauge solid core copper wire to the tip of the twisted runs and carefully pulled the twisted cable through the braided tubing. Only way to really do it.

I then covered the braid with heat shrink tubing as the braid is conductive as you know. I then covered the braid with cloth.

This was somewhat difficult and time consuming for me.

Yes, the shieded WE version is in between the nude WE cable and Belden in terms of sonic personality. I found it not quite as forgiving as the Belden and not quite as "bright" as the nude. Good middle ground for me anyway.

Thanks Grannyring.

Jet, look at the barrel that fits over the cable on the Switchcraft connector. The far end, end opposite the RCA, this will show you how wide you can go on the shield. You would never slide this barrel over 1/2 inch braiding. It was hard for me to slide, but I got it done even with a layer of heat shrink over the braid. I was an effort!

You could skip the barrels and just use a nice and thick heavy duty glue lined heat shrink for a collar. I did that on my digital cable as they were made with two runs per pole and the barrel would not fit over it. Once the glue sets and dries you have a very strong and safe cable! No,I won't mod these ever again after this.

Volleyguy1,

I have liked this stuff from the start and I have made cables from the 16, 14 and 10 awg WE wire. I have sort of stocked up and still have some of each gauge here for future projects.

In my system, all the sizes retain the same sonic characteristics, as I would expect since they are all made from the same tinned 30awg strands with thermoplastic dielectric and a cloth covering.

I like a star-quad configuration for speaker cables so I have a bi-wired set with 4@14awg to the LF and 4@16awg to the MF/HF. These sound very good. On my Class D amp, I am currently running a twisted pair of the 10 awg directly from the amp board, with no binding posts. These also sound very good.

Grannyring and Jetrexpro, I have had good luck ordering tinned copper braid shield and other common parts from McMaster-Carr. BTW, did you notice Take Five Audio is selling Cryo'ed Belden 8402?

Thanks Gannyring and Mitch2. I just ordered 1/4 braided shield.