i have done a lot of this. try www.vacuumstate.com. they have a whole book on diy cables. i have made several of the cables and they are quite good....and very cheap. i have had 4$ speaker cables kill 1500$ ones. so can you build nordost vallahua??? no. can you get a much better than average (500-1000$) speaker and interconnect doing it yourself....oh yeah! as to your wire question. i have used .9999 silver 30gauge wire; 40 gauge magnet wire (copper). i like the thinner wires. silver is to taste i think. i like foils for most of my stuff. copper foils are good too. have not bucked up for silver foils yet....when my listening room is completed...i will really get into this (feb 2002). anyway...from my rambling...i think you can diy and save; without sonic short falls. oh as info my system consists of joule elec la100m3; rogue 120s monos (nos tubed); mac 67 tuner; birdland dac; vpihw19 tt with fidelity research arm fr64fx; shelter 501 cart;arc ph3 phono stage and merlin vsm-ms; yes and all homemade cables. as you can see i have spent some money on equipment. i just think that cables are way out of line in their price. if you like tweaks you should read redkiwi's posts on equipment stands to. really some intresting stuff. IMO
good luck jim
good luck jim