Tim Cole said:
Moral of the story, people see and hear what they want to hear. A lot of the audiophile types are quacks to begin with. If spending the money convinces them they are better off, more power to them.
Unfortunately, this is the default position of the "empirical set" who cannot hear differences in cable. There are only a few reasons for not being able to hear differences in cable.
1. Your aural acuity is not sensitive enough to allow you to hear the difference and pride or fragile self esteem does not allow you to accept the fact that other people can.
2. You have a predisposition to the opinion that "audiophiles are quacks to begin with" and you "convince" yourself that there are no differences.
3. Your equipment is of a sufficiently low level of resolution, so that it does not allow you to hear differences.
4. Your equipment is of a sufficiently HIGH level of resolution (amp / preamp / guitar preamp / pickups / speakers etc) so that if there are differences, they are minute in comparison to the surpassing excellent performance of the rest of the signal chain.
5. The claims of some premium cable companies use dubious science and "made-up" terminology to explain the distinguishing characteristics of their product and it just bugs you. This one is TRUE, you do see some pretty strange claims in the advertising of some companies. After all, this is a profitable product category and there are many players in it. The product positioning of some companies is just more believable than others.
I find it curious that those who cannot hear differences in cables are so hell-bent on "debunking" the concept and trying their best to convince others that if they can't hear differences than neither can anybody else. I think they fail to actually experiment or learn from the experiences of others who obviously do hear differences.
One of the typical responses of cable difference naysayers is that "people convince themselves there is an improvement because they spent a lot of money and need to justify their expenditure".
Phooey!
In my audio system, I have never spent a penney on any upgraded power cable, interconnect, or speaker cable until I auditioned it in my system first. Good dealers will always let you have an in-home audition, because they know how system-dependent so many cables are.
I have auditioned many cables in my high-end two channel system. Apart from frequency response effects (which many cables have) there were differences between all of them, with some clearly standing out from the crowd.
Capacitance, inductance, materials, gauge, insulation / dielectric, terminations all work together to carry the electrical signal. Some combinations of all these factors work better than others and work even better in some systems vs. others. In fact, cables are extremely system dependent, and what sounds great on what system may not yield the same results in another.
There is no hard and fast rule. Input and output impedances vary according to each manufacturer. Some equipment just lights up and outperforms when you put high quality cables on it and some equipment doesn't sound much different at all.
If you can't hear differences (improvements) by using expensive audiophile cable, then you've saved some money. Go buy some new strings or a striking new strap.
Science has yet to think up a measurement or test for every single aspect of audio signal reproduction. There are things yet to be discovered where only future technology will yield the measurements that some individuals crave before they will trust their ears.
If you can't trust your ears, see points 1-4.
