"I picked the rubber ones; they somehow seemed both tougher and more flexible. No regrets. I've bought more examples over the years…" Right, depends on the qua

"I picked the rubber ones; they somehow seemed both tougher and more flexible. No regrets. I've bought more examples over the years…" Right, depends on the quality of the rubber I suppose. I've been suspicious of rubber because when it's old it often turns into a gooey mess or goes hard and cracks (as with VR [vulcanized rubber] used in house wiring in the days before PVC — and often a cause of fires. At the moment that's a bit close to home. I'm in Australia where power is 240V and only two days ago I needed to test an old Advantest spectrum analyzer and I wasn't sure if it had been strapped for 240 or 110V but didn't have a 240/110V transformer to hand so I dug out an ancient variac/auto-transformer to do the job and its power lead was vulcanized rubber which had turned into a sticky mush (replacing the lead didn't help as the windings had a short to the laminations). Similarly, the rubber insulation on my super flexible AVO multimeter leads with many, many strands of superfine Cu wire has disintegrated. It's similarly perished (but they're well over 30 years old). My first experience of silicone comes from its use as the outer jacket/insulation in microphone cables used in an industrial environment (TV studio). It was wonderful, cables were super easy to roll up and keep orderly, and despite its so-called reputation for not being rugged enough heavy camera dollies would regularly run over it without damage. These cables would last for years (the only occasional issue with them was when an XLR connector would get ripped off when caught on something and someone pulled super hard to free it). I've no issue with using VR for leads except I've not been able to get it (for example, I can no longer get a replacement for my AVO leads).