did any of you ever try unshielded interconnects
all mine from arm through whole systems are 99,99 glowed silver in cotton or silk hoses with lomass connectors
absolutely no noise in 112db sensitive hornsystem
my experience is once you introduce syntetic dielectricums or shields, then I get this hf turbulence and sibilance
the street cred obtained is obviously below par, but I don´t care
Your wire will corrode over time. I agree both cotton and silk sound very slightly better vs teflon, but having cables degrade over time is unacceptable. My goal is making things that you can pass down to your kids. The high frequency issues you notice with synthetic insulation, namely teflon, is an artifact of burn-in. It will gradually go away over time. When people test cables they rarely have the patience required to get through burn-in, and then mistakenly attribute sounds of burn-in to the sound of the cable. Silk and cotton actually never properly burn-in, as the position of the conductor vs the insulation is always changing slightly, but otoh it doesn't effect the conductor in the same way, because it's not actually touching the conductor completely. This is a problem though, because now air gets in and corrodes the wire. If you are to do this, the only way you can make a cable that will not corrode is to put it in a tube filled with inert gas.
Also, you should try UPOCC silver, it's 6N+ and some of the high frequency issues you have are caused by relatively cheap 4N silver. If you make identical cables using UPOCC silver/teflon I guarantee they will be far, far better vs your 4N cables, buy you have to give them several hundred hours WITHOUT handling them to get past burn-in.
There is a big issue with the cable industry. Many are designed by people who don't understand the entire function of the cable is to be able to bend it, and that the cable should not degrade over time. Using thick solid-core wire in porous insulation is one of the worst possible cable designs, not only will you get corrosion, but you also get cracking. For power cables you'll get enough resistance built up over time that heat will be generated in the cable, which could lead to combustion. Yet I've seen exactly such cables gushed over here. It's ridiculous, imo. I also see designs with ribbons or foil placed in an arrangement where the cable can't be bent without far too much stress placed on the components, the result is the cable can't be bent very much before it fails.
Anyways, sorry about the rant, it's not all directed at you, it's my frustration seeing my competition sell products that are either going to fail over time, corrode over time, are a safety issue, or even all three at the same time!
And don't get me started on cable companies using fake or look-alike connectors! Somehow it's accepted, as these companies are never called out for putting a set of $50 XLRs you can find on Amazon or Alibaba that resemble $500 XLRs on cables that cost thousands of dollars. Could you imagine spending well into the 5-figures for a set of cables using fake connectors? Personally, I'd be upset but it's never mentioned. I suppose it's just a lack of education or awareness, or people don't care they are getting ripped off.
On shielding, it varies... especially with phono cables. If you measure you'll find shielding does in fact reduce noise, but subjective preference is almost always with the unshielded cable. You can mitigate the harmful effects of shielding by using larger diameter shields that are spaced further away from the wires.
My line level cables are unshielded, but phono and digital cables are shielded. With line level RCA cables, having no shielding is a 1 in 100 issue, maybe even less. With phono it's much more frequent and for digital not having shielding reduces resolution.
