Speaker Cable Recommendation

I have been through a fair number of speaker cables - many were upper end Audioquest - and then one day bought and connectored some "Western Electric" cloth covered tinned copper 36 strand 10 gauge wire on Ebay and was astonished by how good it sounded on my tube amp system running Klipsch Cornwall 4's. Some in the Japanese audiophile community swear by this kind of wire for tube amps and horn speakers.

This wire had been "burned in" for about 40 years at a telephone central office, and I seriously doubt it was "OCC" copper. It had been subjected to 40-50 years of 48-175 d/c volts daily. Perhaps a case could be made for such wire having been somehow annealed to having fewer grain boundaries during this journey, but I doubt anyone would give this credence without analysis at the atomic level.

To further incite the wrath of the cranky audiophile community I also recently did some bi-wiring on this same system with some 16ga wire of the same  "Western Electric" pedigree by making some spaded jumper cables with the stuff and running them  from the bass speaker terminals to the treble connections. According to some internet experts this should make absolutely no difference. This was done to, theoretically, reduce some of the energy going into the tweeter relative to what was going into the woofer. I waited until after component burn-in to do this because I had learned that fiddling with the system before components had revealed their true selves could become quite confusing. Lo and behold the at times faint jangle in certain treble expression - especially with regard to piano and flute - had been tamed with no loss of resolution.

I second the Morrow cables as a good buy,and there is usually a 50% off sale or something.  I had the SP7’s in my system and they were really nice, especially for the price.  They replaced MIT 3.3 Shotguns and Cardas Golden Cross.  I replaced them with Shunyata Alpha v1, which used is a little out of your price range but was, IMHO, a definite audible leap forward.  Cables dont make a system sound like a brand new system, of course, but an audible improvement is an audible improvement. 5% or 10% here and there adds up.  I will make a radical suggestion here.  Many people rave about the knockoff Nordost Odins that you can get on Alibaba.  Although obviously not as good as the real thing, many people think that they are the equal of cables costing thousands.  If you are not morally opposed to buying knockoffs, check out some of the threads on them here.

@bolong I really enjoy my cloth insulated WE’s. . The seller here on AG has made me a couple pair of speaker cables, one bi-wire. He’s also made me a couple pair of IC’s. He can be found periodically here on AG selling speaker and IC’s from his stock.

I think they are a steal at the price he charges, excellent workmanship too! I feel anyone looking could purchase some and try them out. If they don’t float your boat, re-sell them. It’s not like one had to get a second mortgage to buy them in the first place.

OP, I am using mine from a Cary SLI80HS to my Volti Razz’s. I feel it’s an excellent match. Thought I’d add this due to your amp and speaker pairing being very similar to mine.

Seconds to Morrow Audio [SP7] and Cardas [Clear, Clear Cygnus]. I agree that no entry level cables sound good, something I really hoped was NOT true...but every time i have upgraded, I gained more detail, or bass "oomph", or something SIGNIFICANT [there's that word again]. I do NOT agree that that means you must spend $10,000, as someone chimed in above...

I also use Anticables in my 3rd setup, their current top of the line, which is well under your price guideline.

Unfortunately for my [our] wallets, cables do matter.

What most surprised me about the Western Electric cloth covered cables is that they apparently have very wanting insulation - at least relative to a more modern understanding of what is required to to keep ambient EMF from using the cable as an antenna. The WE's have a probably waxed cloth outer covering and a single inner tube which certainly does not appear to be teflon. It looks more like pvc.