How important are speaker cables to the sound emanating from the speakers?

Home made cables from PC-OCC for a few bucks a foot will save you hundreds of dollars. Wrap them in silk tape and tell your mates they cost a fortune.  

You’ll know it when you hear it. Right now I’m amazed at how some Zu Event speaker cables are measuring up in my system. Not touted as much around these parts as other big name brands but that’s perfectly fine with me.

All the best,
Nonoise

Brisson started the whole high end cable thing and is currently the only cable manufacturer who has Patents for his work in cable design with MIT.  If you want realism...MIT!!

dave_b - Many cable designers other than Bruce Brisson have patents on cable design, including: Noel Lee (Monster), William E. Low (Audioquest), David Magnan, Ray Kimber, and George Cardas to name few.

Also, Brisson did not "start[] the whole high end cable thing" - Brisson started the whole "pay obscene amounts of money for high end audio cable" thing with the MIT music hose.  I need to pull out my old TAS issues to double check, but if I recall correctly, there had not been an interconnect that retailed for more than $100 / m prior to the time the MI-330 came out - the MI-330 retailed for what was then an astronomical $350 / m.   

Generally, the first recognized "high end" cable was the Polk Cobra speaker cable from Japan (which was demoed at the June 1976 Chicago CES), followed shortly thereafter by Bob Fulton's cable.   Kimber Kable and Audioquest also predated MIT by several years (Brisson licensed his first designs to Monster in 1981, and did not start MIT until 1984)..  

Brisson was not even the first to use networks to reduce time misalignment / phase shift in speaker cables - Matt Polk got a patent on that basic idea in 1979 (although Brisson used a different implementation).

Please note I am not saying MIT makes bad cables, just there are many other talented designers out there, several of whom predate MIT.

I'll take your word for the detailed history lesson, but as I recall Brisson's work for Monster produced the Monster Interlink Reference cable which was a watershed for audiophiles at the time and used group delay/Varilay construction?  Bruce then formed MIT and has continued to advance the state of the art to this day....I'm not talking Hocus Pocus New Age crap like Cardas and the like, but demonstrable improvements in signal transmission.  Audioquest and Transparent have some good cables but MIT really blows out the walls and the dynamic constraints inherent in other cables, not to mention the tonal accuracy preserved via MIT cables.