Cable design

Ditto on balanced cable if your system supports it. Some cable theory makes sense (to me anyway), and solid core pure copper is one of them, although I do have a silver solid core S/pdif cable (AQ Vdm 5). The best speaker cable I've owned is a set of (currently in my system) AQ Type 8 spiraled star quad perfect surface copper blah blah that sound fabulous, and seem like a bargain if you can find some in the "used" cable market.

I agree with you on the solid copper, Wolf.
I have always liked the sound of Harmonic Technology speaker cables for the money. In particular, the Pro 11 Plus described as,

"Pro-11 Plus is a one inch diameter cable using 19 strands of individually insulated 24ga. OCC copper filaments, resulting in a total of 11awg per conductor path. This design optimizes the ratio between surface area and core size, greatly reducing the 'skin' effect for high frequency detail and smoothness. The Single Crystal TM (OCC) construction and exceptionally high purity 6N copper allow this cable to make your system sound closer to live music!"

I believe the keys to their full, clear, dynamic sound are;
- OCC solid core copper conductors,
- multiple strands of individually insulated 24awg wire, and
- the use of foamed polyethylene insulation.
I am not sure I could consistently pick it out when listening, but I have found that, in general, I like cables with PE insulation, and particularly foamed PE insulation, better than similar cables using Teflon insulation, although the foamed teflon used by VH Audio sounds quite nice.

HT Pro 9 Plus/Reference, etc. provides a similar sound to the Pro 11 plus, but uses a variety of wires sized from 20 to 24 awg. HT went to this 20-24 awg range of wire sizes in their new Pro 11 Reference cables. I am not convinced the variety of sizes is better than the older version using only 24awg wires, and I own both Pro 9 plus with the range of sizes and Pro 11 plus.

I have taken apart both of the HT cables and the individual foamed polyethylene insulated wires are grouped and encased with a plastic material (I believe to be polypropylene), and then some elastic material inside of the larger diameter pvc outer casing. They look very similar to the construction of Neotech NES-3002 that you can see detailed on both VH Audio's and Sonic Craft's websites, except NES indicates the insulation on their cables is polypropylene, not PE. I have seen it speculated that Neotech directly makes (or used to make) cables for companies like HT and Acoustic Zen who would purchase the bulk cable, finish it off and sell it in the USA. The similarity in construction may support this.

I have made speaker cables that use individually isolated 6N 26awg solid core copper in cotton wires in a star quad geometry (16awg aggregate to MF/HF and 11awg aggregate to LF) and they also sound great. I recently put the HT cables back in my system and noticed a small increase in richness and body but the cotton insulated wires seem to be slightly more natural and neutral in the midrange. Both have great bass with depth and slam but the HT cables offer just a bit more body that is helpful to my current computer audio set-up.

I find it interesting how some quite successful companies NEVER specifically detail what is inside of their cables. Would you buy a car without looking under the hood? I admit being jaded about the whole cable thing, but fact is the cable industry in general has made a pile of money off of what amounts to wire, geometry, insulation materials and connectors. I certainly hear differences in cables, and I do use high quality wire (or bulk cable) and high quality connectors in my system, but I pay nowhere near the cost of a component for my wire.

I own 2 high performance German cars and if you look under the hood you can't see a damn thing. I also have paid relatively very little for my pile of cables as I find it much more fun to find clean used stuff. Besides, orphan cables need a nice home!

In MY experience, the connectors are the biggest factor in how the cable sounds. Only use shielded cable if you really need the protection against RFI. Shielding actually closes down the sound. Copper and silver (and gold, etc.) sound DIFFERENT....not necessarily better. The test is how it sounds in YOUR system.