$10 / foot speaker wire

RED ROSE 336 cable at $10/ ft. is THE cable to own in this range. I heard them in the NY studio and was extremely impressed with the system. I would definitely look into these.

CDC:

Did you ever try the magnet wire?

I just finished a set of speaker cables which are single runs of Chimera Labs 25.5 gauge magent wire running through 18 gauge Teflon tubing. The wire was inexpensive (purchased a 100 ft. roll) and the Teflon tubing was under $10 (@ Fryes Electronics) for a 35 ft. roll.

They sound very nice (not quite as good as the 47 Labs OTA, but still in the same ballpark).

I also made an IC from the Chimera wire (CD player to preamp) which I am breaking in right now. The IC is a simple single run "nude" design. RCA's are Radio Shack (8 for $2.99) that have had their metal mass further reduced (cut off the strain relief tab and part of the outer metal housing which makes contact with the outside of the female RCA). An additional treatment is to polish and clean the contact areas of the RCA's. A lot of work, but it goes fairly quickly once you do a few.

The Chimera wire is a bit difficult to work with if you do not own a solder pot (I don't), but I was still able to achieve good results by stripping it with a butane lighter, polishing/cleaning the bare surface and then tinning the same with Chimera Labs solder. To be on the safe side I wrapped the ends of the wires (in the area where the insulation and the tinned surface join) with Teflon plumbers tape in the event that the coating was not completely intact in the transition area.

I have some Luminous Audio Renaissance speaker cable in a true bi-wire set-up & for the price it's hard to beat. Instead of going into details, I'll just list my review>
http://www.audioasylum.com/audio/cables/messages/44584.html
>if you'd care to read it, although there have been changes to my system since my review.

Dekay: For what it's worth, PLEASE try some different RCA plugs. Those "el cheapo's" from Rat Shack sound horrible in my experience. I built some experimental cables using those and they sounded horrible. I later went back to those cables and tried different RCA's and the sound was much improved. Sean
>

Sean:

I have only compared the cheap modded RCA's (in DIY designs) to my 47 Labs RCA's and to some that were Kimber, I think.

I forgot to mention that I also ditch the plastic screw on covers. Perhaps you are confusing these with the RS Gold RCA's which do sound like crap. These are not gold plated and once I get through with them they contain very little metal.

Try them modified as I use them (in a simple single run nude design and with HQ 25.5-26 gauge solid core wire) and they do not sound horrible as you describe it.

The downside however is that the designs are very fragile (you can fry gear if you are not very careful) and they do not offer shielding and/or RFI rejection. As I do not have an RFI problem I am willing to take the risk with the rest of it. I once tried a pair of completely nude silver IC's (zero insulation) which sounded incredible, but the much higher risk factor involved with these was too much for me to continue their use.

No one could sanely market such designs as looking @ them makes it obvious that they can be made up in a matter of minutes from basic materials (plus they will fall apart with general use). I sold all of my commercial IC's (other than the simplistic 47 Labs stuff) a few years ago and never looked back (the one exception being a Mapleshade digital IC that I did like the sound of, though without a DAC on hand it doesn't get much/any action these days:-).