I didn't originally set out to do an exhaustive study of interconnects, but over the last few years I've ended up building dozens of types of interconnects using a wide range of materials including silver wire, copper wire, silver strip and silver tape. The conductors have included single strand wires and various types of stranded conductors and Litz wire. The dielectrics I've used have mostly been PTFE tube, PTFE tape and nylon tube. I've also experimented with CAT 5 network wiring, and I've used coaxial cable and figure-8 wiring as raw materials and (with the original wires removed) as sheathing for other conductors.

After a lot of listening trials on my own audio systems, and those of some friends, I found that the designs detailed below all gave good performance in a range of environments. None presents unusually high resistence or capacitance, they are all fairly cheap and simple to construct, and they all perform at least as well as mid priced commercial interconnects.

If the only interconnects you have ever heard are the cheap stranded leads which came for free with a piece of equipment, and if you are interested in experimenting with something different, then I recommend you try constructing one of these designs before spending a lot of money on a commercial product. You don't have to spend a fortune on wiring if you do it yourself, and like the passive linestage, interconnects are a good simple first project for practicing soldering and construction techniques.

The "Simple Twist" Interconnect