it’s not sexy stuff, but I would recommend getting some Belden 1313A cable and using that as your reference. The price? About $2 a foot. Sacrilege, I know.
Actually, I don’t know much about anything, but this is really good, extremely inexpensive cable. If I had some esoteric listening palace I might consider something else, but in a living-room system, I think it’s great. (I got it for a longer run, but I’m also using some in my office system, and I can’t complain.)
Its appearance is pretty boring on its own, but add some black cable sheathing and decent bananas and you’ve got something that looks downright fancy.