I have to say something in the defence of people who have spent years developing speaker wire and other audio cables. There is science in their craft. I'm and Engineer who's studied electrical things, although I won't claim I'm the pre-eminent authority on electronics. However, from what I do know:

1. Electrons are not moving along the wire at the speed of light, although I don't think that matters.

2. The electrons do care about the wire they're travelling through. If the resistance of the wire were the only detrimental factor experienced, then why not just get 8 guage wire and keep your runs short? However there's more going on than this.
The wires will inherrently have inductance and capacitance, and these can be more nasty than just resistance alone, because they are dependant on the frequency of the signal being carried. Inductance will cause more impedance at low frequencies, and capacitance will cause more impedance at high frequencies. These impedances will also affect power factor, which can cause phase-shifts for some notes relative to others.

I'm keeping this purely theoretical so far... I'm going somewhere trust me.

3. This is the most important one by far: An audio cable must also protect the signal from being polluted by noise. Noise is caused by magnetic fields surrounding the cable. These fields are generated by other electronics in your house, and even with good magnetic sheilding, more is always better. I assume this is why Kimber Kable braids several small conductors instead of using a co-ax or conventional wire.


Now, having stated at least some of the theory behind making a better speaker wire, I must still concede the one rule of audio that's always true. If you can't hear the difference, or you don't like the difference you hear, then you'd be better spending the money elsewhere. I doubt I'd be able to detect any difference between the cables I use and $10,000 cables. And mine aren't that expensive. One of the reasons is that the distortions that will be caused by a poor cable will be miniscule compared to other, more critical aspects of a stereo system.

Spend your money somewhere else, for sure. I haven't yet tried bi-wiring or bi-amping my system yet, but I believe there is more merrit to doing this than on buying top-end speaker wire...

Lastly, the cable I use is by Kimber... the 4TC. It does the job and was not rediculously expensive, but was pricy enough for me. I think it's the best-looking cable, blue and black braided together. If that sort of thing matters to you, then I'd suggest checking out Kimber. You're stereo is really all about what you want it to be. I see it as a hobby, and once music gets involved, it's very enjoyable.

Regards,

Scott