Highly Polished wire????

That is a great point. If you use sand paper you are going to leave minute traces of Aluminum Oxide on the wire. I would suggest cleaning it afterward with water and a mild detergent. Just be sure to dry it very well to stop corrosion.

Do any manus. ultrasonically clean their cables during production?

OK say we do polish with a rouge, wouldn't by the act of polishing embed even more particles of the rouge into the metal. High purity copper and Silver are not the hardest metals on earth. Seems that the only way to polish would be to chemically treat them. Once you remove the Copper Oxide or Silver Oxide it immediately starts to form again. I am not doubting there is stuff on the surface of the wire that should be removed from the manufacturing process,like grease and stuff, but just wondering if the process of "polishing" by physical contact adds more than it removes. Would be interesting to hear how companies like Nordost "polishes" their wire. Anybody have any clue about this process?

I recently purchased some "special" silver wire for some crazy DIY project I dreamt up. Anyhow this wire does in fact sound great! - the manufacturer of the wire said, "The wire supplied to you is burr-free and polished to a mirror-like finish, this feature is requested by us because, even though audio frequencies do not travel to the outside surface of the wire, we have heard a smoother top end resulting from this finish."

Bwhite comes through again! The information this fella knows is unbelievable! :o)