Most important technical aspects of speaker wires? Capacitance, inductance, etc...

alexb76,

Fortunately you already seem to know the answer is to go and find as many potential candidates as you possibly can and listen to them. Unfortunately you need to do this whether it is a lot or a few, whether they are new or burned-in or used, and whether they are anywhere near your budget or not. There's just no way around it, and the more you do it (even when it seems futile) the better result you will ultimately achieve.

I have auditioned a ton of them and would not personally recommend any of the ones you mentioned. Its not that they are bad, just that when compared side by side they do not give as high value for the money as comparable Synergisitic Research cables. The others tend to be more like band-aids or MyFi, which is why you will hear a lot of comments about system matching. A really good cable will sound really good in your system, period. Its the marginal ones that need to be "matched".

Its a lot of trouble but when you are up in the $5k system range well worth the effort. The general rule I have used for years is about 20% wire. But everyone messes that up so let me explain.

Its not telling you to go out and spend $1k on speaker cable. Its not even telling you to spend $1k altogether on wire (power cords, interconnects, speaker cables) its just to give you some idea what range to be looking in. Because you could spend $5k and wind up with crap, or $500 and not believe how much difference it made. $500 can actually get you a lot if you do it right. Realistically you would be looking at something like
https://www.audiogon.com/listings/lis9bdha-synergistic-research-sr-core-speaker-cables-8ft-with-bana...
and
https://www.audiogon.com/listings/lis9e47i-synergistic-research-reference-a-c-master-coupler-ac-cabl...
Either of which will be hard to beat for the money.

Another one you want to consider is cerious. They sound wonderful with my equipment, but... As mill states above, speaker cables are very system dependent. What are you using now?

It is hard to choose where to start.Listing your amp a ,speakers and budget will help get you some brands to research further.
The outer sleeves add only pennies to the cost of that was your concern.Sometimes it is necessary depending on the particular construction of the cable.
There are some superb reasonably priced cables out there.

Thanks. About Synergetic Research cables. I’ve never heard those, BUT, attended a demo session by their rep or maybe even owner at AXPONA and found him to be incredibly sleazy, snake oil salesman and biggest BSer I’ve encountered in my entire life. Like they would do an A/B comparison and literally there’s no change in sound and he would BS something and convince ppl that they heard a difference. It was shockingly deceiving and just due to that session I was beyond turned off by anything they sell. As far as I’m concerned they're a bunch of crooks!  In comparison, Audioquest did another A/B comparison of their latest speaker wires and holy crap did I heard a big difference and they still didn’t boast as much as that sleazy guy at synergetic research. 

Now, I may have to try for myself to see if their speaker wires are any good and not snake oil but that demo literally made me question the entire company.