thieleste - I concur with vair68robert - Cardas is a good, albeit expensive, solution.
Background in brief: Thiel discovered its 18-2 x tight twist in teflon via aerospace, and solved otherwise insurmountable problems developing the 1978 model 03. Phase/Time coherence brought many system shortcomings into bright focus and ordinary wire was a big limitation. That 'Thiel' wire withstood all comparisons over the decades: 1988 CS5 development where we compared all the available contenders, and again Jim’s 2006 CS3.7 Swan Song design. From Thiel’s perspective and value assessment, it couldn’t be beat.
I began my own Thiel assessments in the mid 20teens and got serious in 2018. My scrutiny operates a little differently in that my value equation assumes product ownership, so further investments become incremental and more affordable than in new product bill-of-goods. I was aided by all the wire/cable heavy hitters and have learned more than I thought possible, especially in the domains of wavefront propagation integrity, and who understands what and how. My studies and progress landed with physics and quantum states, in which company ’it’ all makes as much sense as one’s skills can digest, interpret and apply. Deepest, longest rabbit hole of my life.
In our present context, the only ’stranded’ wires that pass muster for me are those that somehow insulate strand from strand - which are typically called 'solid' even when very small. Those include Cardas, some Kimber, Morrow, Anti-Cable and Iconoclast. (And possibly others I don’t know.) Many of the geometries are quite complex and expensive, and very good. New Thiel's 16awg - stranded is a big backslide, which often happens in the Dr. Toole frame of reference of ABX and things only matter if provable under their parameters and testing protocols.
My (upcoming) Renaissance wire family incorporates everything I’ve learned and painstakingly proven in the lab and listening room over the past 7 years. From my perspective of ’do no evil’ and ’preserve everything’, it nails it. And it is relatively simple and accessible - and therefore affordable.
Summary: Wire matters. There are more ways to go wrong than right. Low frequencies act differently than high frequencies (beyond current capacity). It you want to replace wire, investigate the brands I’ve mentioned. If you want to wait for mine, I really expect it to be available this year as ICs, Speaker Cable, internal hookup, chassis wire and coils. It stands on the shoulders of Thiel’s classic wire, which in many ways is already best of form.
