I must say... wow.. like many people here, I have made fun of the audio cabling industry for years... I would not have believed that a cable could make a difference.. A friend of mine who has insisted throughout that he hasnt been able to tell the difference with component upgrades sat in on this one, and in a blind test, said 'wow, the first one sounds really terrible and muffled, and the second one sounds really clear'... the first was my old monster cables, the second was a pair of 2 mtr runs of plenum shielded category 5 cable i picked out from the scraps being used to cable networking equipment for a new floor at work.
Cat5/Plenum sounds so excellent, I'm unable to express it.. By far the biggest sound improvement in my system to date.. and for completely no cost, or if you dont have the scrap around, for under a dollar. Beautiful cymbals, clear vocals, deepening soundstage. A listening session that followed left everyone involved saying 'wow, thats incredible.. who would've thought, cat5?'

Thanks for the tip, saved me atleast a few hundred bucks.. i suggest anyone seriously considering a costly cable purchase try this first (per the wiring recommendations of the first poster).. simply amazing, and I was professing how silly this whole cabling thing was just a few hours ago.

Update: I have just implemented a newer version of these cables with a few minor modifications (although the sonics are noticably better).
The Revisions:
I have replaced the Category Five cable previously used with Hitachi Plenum-grade Category Seven cable. This fine cable uses a teflon outer jacket, and teflon coated insulators for the conductors. I have also wired the individual twisted pairs as + and -. This has markedly lowered the measured inductance, and barely affected the capacitance. I have also switched from radio shack connectors to WBT banana plugs (which sound great and are reusable). Measured values were made _pre_ WBT plugs with rshack pins, so the vastly improved termination is not a factor.

How do they sound?:
Great! Versus the previous version, there is slightly more air, better depth and noticably improved transient response. I highly recommend these!

Price: From Cables to Go, $0.31/ft. (remember you need 4 times your distance to do one cable)