Wow, no responses to this?

A couple things I'd recommend.

You said you're knowledgeable with soldering, but still, it's good to keep in mind that you need to heat both the wire to be soldered and especially the metal that you're trying to solder the wire to! Both must be warm enough to melt the solder at a touch, not just the wire.

Use heat shrink tubing, and get the good stuff (like 3M ). Heat shrink is a great way to give the cables that finished look.

Try to make cables as perfectly balanced as possible. If one cable is 3' 1/4", then all cables should be 3' 1/4". If it's something you have control over, you might as well take your time and make it perfect.

I find the more expensive the connections are, the easier they seem to be to build, because the company that made them started their design from scratch; so they had the opportunity to make them just the way they wanted.

So take your time, and do them up right.

Go to VH Audio and look at his Caulk Backer interconnect.  It seems a solid design.  I also see good cables having 3 wire on the negative and 2 on the positive.  The wires are Litz design as in do not touch.  Separate them with cotton or air.