Cable Controversy

Agree with hifiman5, disagree with psag.  I believe cables ARE tone controls...without question. 
Everyone's perception of what "sounds good" is different.

 Let's say someone prefers a certain flavor of sound. Cable A might take them further away from that flavor, while cable B may bring their system closer to it. All components have their own flavor as well. They're like ingredients in a recipe. Certain ingredients work well together, some don't. Depends what you want it to taste like. Also, too much of one ingredient can ruin the meal...just like cables.
I have one friend who has two different model pairs of interconnects. The ones going to his preamp are five times as expensive as the ones going to his amp. Why? Because while the first pair has tremendous air but is slightly thinner in bass, the second pair brings that needed bass to the signal. (there's more to it than that but I'm just trying to make this long, borring post shorter, lol).

 There is no right and wrong, just right and wrong TO THAT PERSON, IN THEIR SYSTEM.  

Cabling is not necessarily tone controls, more like, filters.
As in filtering out specific information, filtering in specific information.

@psag   I would encourage you to rethink your last post.  Look at manufacturer's systems that they set up at audio expos...they use the same gear from show to show and that does include cables.  From their own extensive research they have assembled a synergistic system that they believe shows their products in the best light.  In fact, the system components used by the same designer at shows can vary from one product in their line to another.  They know there is no "absolute sound".  They are looking for components that play the best together for the particular product they are endeavoring to showcase.

From a purely scientific perspective cables are primarily and overwhelmingly a function of their resistance. Can the type of conductive material, insulation material, capacitance, the rest of teh audio gear and some other variables effect the overall sound, of course. However, all aspects other than sheer resistance or lack thereof are dwarfed in comparison (to resistance).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speaker_wire

From perspectives other than scientific your guess is as good as mine.

Regarding resistance, in many and perhaps most circumstances it is indeed likely to be the most important parameter in the case of speaker cables, and also power cords. It might also be at least marginally significant in the case of digital interconnect cables.

Under nearly all circumstances, however, it will be of little and probably no significance in the case of line-level analog interconnects and phono cables, because it will be a totally insignificant fraction of the impedances of the components that are being connected, especially the input impedance of the destination component. In those cases capacitance and perhaps shielding will often be the most important parameters, depending on the impedances of the components that are being connected, the length of the cables, and several other variables. Although if ground loop issues are involved in an analog interconnection, that can be affected by the resistance of the shield or other return conductor in the cable.

Also, given the many component dependent variables that factor into the sonic effects of a cable, I agree with those who maintain that a cable that may be considered to be inferior to another in terms of its intrinsic sonic quality may perform better in many applications than one that is supposedly superior intrinsically.

Some relevant comments I posted on 12-15-2012 in this thread:

If an interconnect having relatively high capacitance is compared with one having relatively low capacitance, and if everything else is equal, the higher capacitance cable will produce a duller and more sluggish response in the upper treble region if used as a line-level interconnect (especially if it is driven by a component having high output impedance), due to the interaction of cable capacitance and component output impedance; while the exact opposite result will occur if those same two cables are compared in a phono cable application and driven by a moving magnet cartridge, due to the interaction of cable capacitance and cartridge inductance.

It is easily possible for digital cable "A" to outperform digital cable "B" in a given system when both cables are of a certain length, and for cable "B" to outperform cable "A" in that same system if both cables are of some other length. The happenstance of the relationships between cable length, signal risetimes and falltimes, cable propagation velocity, component susceptibility to ground loop-related noise, and the happenstance of how closely the impedances of both components and the cable match, all figure into that.

Regards,
-- Al