a great take on big$ cables

So, Serus, IF the boombox amp isn't clipping, and IF you equalize frequency response, THEN it will sound the same as a component system (assuming reasonable levels of IM and THD). So what? If you eliminate all the factors that make things sound different, then they sound the same. What a discovery. Alert the Nobel Committee.

If you eliminate all the factors that make things sound different, then they sound the same

But they don't sound the same and even YOU will notice that. Yet, you will not identify the boombox in a DBT. I'll bet $1000 against your $100, how about that. It's a farse, coined around the $15,000 "challenge". Both are a farse. Geddit?
Bad test. Nothing else I have to say...

Cable cos. multiply like cockroaches. Tremendous profit potential without having to own any test equipment or manufacturing facilities.

Serus: How do you know they don't sound the same? How do you know you're not imagining a difference where none exists? The answer is, you don't know, and you can't know unless you compare them blind. So if you want to claim they sound different, you have to invent and carry out some sort of blind test (since you insist the ones we have are bad) in which you demonstrate that you really can tell the difference. We're waiting.

Pabelson:

you have to invent and carry out some sort of blind test

You got it... A long term test...

How do you know you're not imagining a difference

You can measure differences (how about 0.25% difference?) in THD between the two and still won't be able to tell the difference in a conventional DBT with one minute clips. What do you think?!

The answer is, you don't know, and you can't know unless you compare them blind

So, when (not if!) you fail the above test you will sell your main gear and listen to a boombox for the rest of your life, just because you arbitrarily decided that "you can't know unless you compare them blind"? The emphasis is on arbitrary, until I see a conclusive research that shows consistent statistical correlation of DBT to sonic perception.
Without that, you are making an arbitrary decision that the particular method is a good indicator. I'm looking for the science here.
Go back and look at the roots of scientific evaluation. Even Einstein's theory of relativity had to wait many years for "official" proof, until someone could measure the effects of gravity on light. We tend to simplify and take things for granted, but that is not scientific. What's scientific is for one to ask why isn't reality in agreement with Newtonian mechanics and dare say that the speed of light is constant, risking ridicule by his colleagues.
You can ignore what your brain tells you based on what seems to be an incomplete or insufficient test data. That is not science, even though it includes scientific methods. I'm sorry that I don't know the answer, but I do know what to ask. You don't!
You seem to accept it that someone with X years in the audio industry "gotta know" more than what your own ears tell you. With that approach we wouldn't have an atom (which nobody could see at the turn of the twentieth century!) and would be still teaching Greek geometry instead of Calculus in our schools (Newton was "blamed" to be insane with his definition of infinitesimals...)
Dare to question!