What is the best insulation material for high fidelity cables?
Most low end (mass consumer) speaker cables are made with Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) insulation. These are cables that you typically get at Circuit City, Best Buy, and Radio Shack (ie. Monster cables). Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) has a high dielectric constant and actually attacks the copper over time (copper poisoning) and this type of insulation should be best avoided for a high fidelity audio system. Polyethylene (PE) is a step up from PVC. PE has better dielectric properties. Using the same cable design, a PE insulated cable will sound better than PVC. Many hi-end cables are made from PE or Foamed PE insulation and they can be priced from a few hundred to thousands of $$$. Polypropylene (PP) is slightly better than PE in dielectric property and should be better than PE. However, PP is a very stiff material, so the cable made from PP insulation has very low flexibility. Only a very few companies make PP cables for audio applications. Teflon (FEP, PTFE, PFA) is most recognized as the best
