DO CABLES REALLY MATTER?

I just made this post in another thread, about sibilance. It appears it actually belongs here:

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It can start right at the source point itself. Issues in microphone power supplies, bad microphone circuitry, bad microphone choices, bad microphone preamps and circuitry, bad mixing board wiring, bad mixing board power supplies, bad mixing board circuitry, and so on, down the line. It’s a very involved set of subjects.

Certain aspects of the human voice can emphasize this, and if the recording engineers are not cognizant of this issue being possible in each stage as mentioned.... then each part of this chain can be bad. Then it all adds up... and we get "screech-mud" for a a sonic result.

How much music have you heard that sounds like ’screech-thump, screech-thump’, on and on and on?

Sometimes good recordings are an accident, sometimes it’s intentional.

It’s a crap shoot, as they say. Bad? Bad we can find anywhere.

Bad is so easy to find that people have come to think that gear and recordings all sound that way. That the distortions are inherent to the situation and they don’t actually listen, they project what they know into it. (the human body is wired for this automaton behaviour)

Teaching people otherwise is a monumental task.

It’s the very heart of the audiophile conundrum. Some get it, some don’t.

It’s why we have such threads as cable debates. Some people live with an outward projection only, and some have a two way path of awareness, which is what is required to build a self beyond the basics.

Life is too short and we are only marginally learning and cognition machines...... we are principally unconscious mimic, copy, and mirror -- absorption machines.

If you watch yourself carefully you can see it in action.

Thus: "Give me the child for the first seven years and I will give you the man."

(Voltaire falsely attributed it to Ignatius of Loyola, as a barb at him - Voltaire was not fond of such, the correct origin is Aristotle)

Intelligence is a long slow walk back through the cluttered forest you came from.

The main reason cables matter is to promote the  eristical behavior of audiophiles.

The more difficult the problem is to solve, the more fundamental the error in the formulation of the question.

A restatement of the last line in my prior post.

Which is, in turn, a restatement of the Aldous Huxley quote.

I don’t get into the science project answers! So anyone please don’t get upset if it seems like I don’t answer your question.  The bottom line is that it has been my experience when I put random cheap cable in I lose fidelity to my ears. It may be a change in the sound. I like an open midrange tight bass and extended highs. Some cables do that in my system. I’m going to like those more. I started this thread because at the end of the day cables matter. To some they matter because they change what we hear. For others it drives them nuts because some of us in their eyes spend too much for zero improvement based on what they hear or can’t hear. Some of us would rather spend more on equipment or tweaks. I enjoy what my cables do and I can tell the difference. To each his own. I’m not hear for case study. I enjoy the tunes. You should too cables or not!

@teo_audio  Thank you for another value laden post.

+1 "If you watch yourself carefully you can see it in action."