i have about 10 questions to post on AK and haven't gotten around to doing it yet, but am going to start with this one:

when i bought a bunch of AR (wish i had gotten belden instead, next time i will), my roommate and i stripped the plastic case off of the ends. i did this very carefully, he did not. the cables that he helped with are ragged. i can't hear a difference, but am wondering if there is one.

well, maybe i could hear a difference, but i haven't the time to pay attention to which speakers are hooked up with which cables

Lots of folks will apply a little solder to the stripped ends, to make it easier to insert the wire into the clip, and prevent future fraying. If the current ends are ragged, just clip them off and re-strip them.

Well, if you got a bad (high resistance) connection, you might hear some difference in the bass. The bad one might be "boomier" (and therefore louder on some material)from less damping, but I have never done the experiment of breaking strands until I can hear the difference.

Tinning the ends of your speaker wires not only makes it easier to insert the wire into the clip - it could also save your equipment. I've "repaired" several receivers and amps with "protection circuit" problems. Often a broken strand has shorted (or at least put a very low resistance) across the speaker terminals inside the chassis.