For several easily explainable technical reasons, in many systems interconnect cables certainly can and do sound different, at least to a minor degree. That does not necessarily mean that the systems in which those differences appear are "more revealing."
In general, the higher the output impedance of the component driving the cable, the greater the significance that will be assumed by cable capacitance, and perhaps by other cable effects as well.
Also, balanced cables and interfaces are inherently much less prone to interaction between signal return currents and inter-chassis noise currents, ground loops, etc., than single-ended (unbalanced) cables. The significance of those kinds of effects will be dependent on various technical happenstances in the component designs, in the ac power quality and distribution scheme, and in the emi/rfi environment. In the case of unbalanced cables, lower resistance in the shield or other return conductor of the cable will lessen those effects.
Of course, cable length is also an important variable in all of this.
As Tvad mentioned, Atmasphere has made the point that in the case of components having balanced interfaces, and where the driving component can drive 600 ohms without adverse effects (the majority of audiophile-oriented components with balanced interfaces cannot do that), cable effects can be expected to be negligible or non-existent.
Besides these technical factors, there also would seem to be ample anecdotal evidence that cable differences may exist that are not technically explainable.
HOWEVER, THE FACT THAT DIFFERENCES EXIST DOES NOT BY ANY MEANS NECESSARILY MEAN THAT A MORE EXPENSIVE CABLE WILL OUTPERFORM A LESS EXPENSIVE CABLE IN ANY GIVEN SYSTEM.
As I have said in some other cable threads in the past, the real question is not if differences exist, but how strong is the correlation between performance and price. The correlation is obviously not 0 (no correlation), and it is obviously not 1 (perfect correlation). It lies somewhere in between, and my feeling, based on the technical factors that are involved and on my reading of the anecdotal evidence that has been reported, is that it is toward the loose end of that range (i.e., closer to 0 than to 1).
In other words, while differences certainly exist, given the known technical factors which result in some of those differences, given the system dependency that is typically involved, given the whole area of system synergy, and given that some cables have unconventional parameters that make them non-neutral by design, in many cases I would expect a well made but inexpensive cable to outperform one that costs far more.
Regards,
-- Al
