BEST INTERCONNECT FOR $25 EACH?

@terry9 Canare Star Quad (L-4E6S) has never used Teflon. It's always been polyethylene dielectric AFAIK, certainly for the last 15+ years.

Also I'm not sure why you need a fume hood for soldering teflon - if anything, teflon can withstand far higher temperatures than most other insulation types. If it didn't, it would never be used as a coating for non-stick frying pans. PE is much more likely to melt/off-gas, though XLPE seems to withstand higher temps.

Nothing against star quad Canare or Mogami, they are solid cables. However for single-ended (RCA) interconnects they're not the most transparent. They perform much better in balanced XLR applications for which they were designed. 

I think given the quality of your components, it's worth investing a little more than $25. My first suggestion would be anything DH Labs. Very nice, consistently musical and neutral cables that don't break the bank. The BL-1 starts around 90 bucks for a pair, however you can also buy the raw wire for $6/ft (so $36 for a 3ft pair) and terminate it yourself with e.g. Switchcraft RCAs to save a few bucks. Or find them used. They also make a budget cable called White Lightning for around 50 bucks or $2/ft, but it's a different design (coax) and I haven't heard it. 

Here is all their bulk wire, lots of affordable stuff:
https://silversonic.com/products/bulk-wire-and-cable/

What about speaker wire? If you want something a little ungainly (stiff and heavy) but terrific sounding for cheap, I have a recipe, and you can get it at your local Lowes hardware.

@grannyring 

I am using the Duelund DCA16GA wire as speaker (Double Impact) wire and the Duelund DCA20GA wire for interconnects. I prefer the 20GA for interconnects. The sound is a little more open and it works well with my 6SN7 tube preamp and KT88/6SN7 tube amp. 

Thanks guys. I will check them out Taww. Also, the President of Parts Connexion answered me and said that I don’t even need Shielded cables for a short interconnect application for signals. 

Now I am back to thinking about those Duelunds. Sorry, this is a work in progress as you guys steer me. He also recommended 20awg over the 16awg for the interconnects. 

By the way everybody my speakers are Monitor Audio Gold and my speaker wires are 12AWG Phantom Speaker Cables rated for FT-4 in wall use from Infinite Cables in Canada.  Check out the number of strands! 

There are no $25 best interconnect cables. As a rule of thumb, if your components are under $1000, Decent cables such as from Monoprice work fine, and you don't need more expensive cables, or even a $3000 cable doesn't make any difference. If you components are between $1000 and $10,000, Blue Jean cables work fine. BJC uses Belden and Canare cables, Neutrik and Switchcraft connectors, and a few others. If your components are more than $10,000, then look for better cables. The total cost of your cable is no more than 5% of your system. I make my own cables for a $50K McIntosh-Focal system.