Best speaker cable in the $2,500 range

You are making lots of sense. However, I believe that those attributes you seek are most frequently found in the amplifier. Not cabling.

I believe if cabling is doing it's job properly, it will for the most part only accentuates what is already there.

But the very common things I've noticed about most cabling is that there seems to be a time-smear and a grain, glare, or hash that many to seem to find acceptable.

-IMO

Ohhh. I guess I am hoping to hear the "traits" or "sonic characteristics" of the cables I listed so I will have an idea of which ones to narrow down to. Of course I will go audition them and perhaps demo them in my system before buying.

Also, I would like to add a couple more cables to the lists: the Audioquest Volcano (might be an older model) and the Cardas Golden Reference.

I respectfully disagree with Robert Schult’s statement. His statement assumed that the “goodness” of a component is measurable and it is absolute, but in reality neither is true.

Lets consider this: what does it mean by a good speaker cable? Is it low DC resistance? Is it low capacitance? Is it low inductance? Or maybe it is all three. But how do we know these three parameters are the only ones that affect the “goodness”? What about the material used like pure sliver wire, sliver plated copper, single crystal copper, OFC, etc… How do we measure their goodness? Or maybe there are other parameters that we don't even know yet.

Eventually, we still have to put the cable in a system and listen for the result. What if the same cable sounds good in one system but sounds bad in another, is that cable still a good component? How about my situation, I initially connected a BAT VK-75SE to a pair of Vandy 5 using Harmonic Tech Pro-9+ biwired, but the result was unsatisfactory, rolled off high and soft bass. I than replaced the Pro-9 with a pair of dyi cables made from Home Depot extension cord and everything has improved, high opened up, bass was tighter and better defined, mid-range has more details.

Now back to the “goodness” question: the Pro-9 is supposed to be a good speaker cable but it didn’t sound very good in my system, does that mean the VK-75SE and the Vandy 5 are not “good” components? Or maybe the dyi cable is “good” but the Pro-9+ is not? How can we tell?

At the end of the day, the goodness of a component still has to be determined by how it performs in a particular system and that means system synergy.

Oops! Apology to Mr Schult...I was referring to another individual with a similar name, and thought the first reference was simply a typo. Ern

try looking into audioquest they have some good cables for spealers in that range.
as for transparent the only really good speaker cably they have is the opus and it cost 35k.