AKG k-1000 re-wiring

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I have an older pair of AKG K-1000 headphones (but new to me). The insulation is fraying and partly missing near the headset, and it obviously has had some tape wrapped around it. AKG wants $100 for the two cords (and the 2 XLR connectors) but did provide some service notes and a diagram on their website for DIYers (and cheapskates like me - they want $190 if they do it). I am not interested in purchasing the Stefan AudioArt replacements.
1) Since they need to be driven by a 10 wpc amp, anyway, why shouldn't I use some decent 18 ga speaker wire for the first leg? I can put some plastic mesh wire organizer around the two lengths with heat shrink tubing at either end to make it look neat. The original cable just seems to have the 4 conductors loosely twisted inside the outer clear insulation.
2) The second leg of the wiring (which actually connects to a small PC board inside the phones and which I have not yet seen since I haven't disassembled them yet), is a dual shielded wire, one to each ear speaker, the other end joins to a mating XLR connector. Why the shielded cable for the last few feet? - especially since the first 10 foot cable carries such a high level signal, and those four conductors are not arranged as two twisted pair - all four are just loosely twisted. Do these last few feet of shielded cable provide some needed capacitance?
3) Why bother with the XLR connectors and two different cables at all? Since they need to be connected to an amp's speaker outputs, why not just put your favorite spades, banana plugs, etc. on one end and connect the wires directly to the PC boards inside the cans? (Okay, maybe the wire would be too thick, but there are ways around that. And maybe there is a need for the shielded cable, but I'd like to know why.) If I do use shielded cable, what should I use? If I don't need the shielded cable, I could always terminate the amp end of the headphone cable in the old XLR connector and make a short XLR to spades, plugs, etc. adapter.
4) The service notes reference using a water soluble adhesive to tame vibrations on the inner side of the frame. Any suggestions for a specific brand?

I would just like to make the headphone cable(s) more serviceable - not to wring out the last ounce of fidelity out of these 5-10 year old headphones, as good as they might be.

Any suggestions gladly accepted!
 
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