I'd like some recommendations for speaker cables

A point I was not clear on.  A the shield on shielded lug connector wire must be connected physically to the housing or ground of a component at preferably the reference or signal source end as opposed to an RCA connector where the shield can be grounded to the reference signal end the of connector housing.  
 

Many high end cables use internal conductor design such as Litz wire or other twisted conductor configurations, or thin flat conductor configurations, as a shield by electromagnetic field theory and creating a Faraday cage that does not permit EMI from entering the core signal path.  There is no requirement for a physical ground yet the cable is shielded.  Read more is if you desire on Faraday’s law and a Faraday Cage.  Conclusion, not all shielded cable designs need a physical ground. Some companies combine physical shielding with wire configurations, using both electromagnetic field theory and physical shields to ground. 

I believe that speaker cables are the most important ones in "the loom." I've owned Nordost, Siltech and Skogrand, all of which were very nice. But my end state cables are the SilverSmith Fidelium. These are also the least expensive; can it get any better?

Take a peek at "The Super Cables Cook Book" which is a classic that makes the case for foil cables. The idea of electromagnetic waves traveling over the surface of the cable is powerful, because it's true. Hear it for yourself. These are now the only cable in all of my components.

What a discussion. You have to look at the entire audio path. To not do so might create what some call "bottlenecks". I personally have a set of AudioQuest Robinhood cables and they sound good to my ears. I have to caveat that my ears are not what they used to be. They are if I remember shielded and they have some sort of contraption on the end that supposedly sucks up and interference picked up along the way so you supposedly get a more clean signal into you speaker. I have also found for my desktop system a set of speaker cables that are like maybe if I remember correctly about $200 for about 8ft of cable from a direct sales company called Clarity Precision. They are not the bestest but I feel pretty dang good for what you pay. BTW I use the Audioquests on a pair of LSA Signatures and have excellent depth/width/timbre for my ears. I also like the idea of using the cable companies lending library. I wouldn’t get into an over the top discussion with them. tell them the price range and go from there. Good luck. Oh, one more thing I tend to like my music more on the warm side of things. I find too much clarity, especially in the higher listening range, can be harsh to my ears. Give me a nice warm wide and deep soundstage in ink blackness and I'm just too happy.

@mambacfa +1 for Silversmith Fidelium.  I haven't tried many speaker wires because I really didn't think they'd make much difference.  My previous set were Synergistic Research wires that were $350 about 25 years ago.

Anyway, a friend with $90k speakers uses Fidelium cables and really liked them.  So, I tried a pair.  Big difference.  I had several conversations with Jeffrey Smith in the process of trying to understand what was going on.  Very nice man.  Smart guy. Unless it's changed, he has a nice return policy.  You might give them a try. 

DNM ribbon solidcore