Do speaker cables really make a difference ?

Your opinion is the only one that matters. For me and my system- it did make a significant difference. 

In the last couple of weeks I tried set of Micca 14 cables after reading great reviews of them with some comparing them to $1,000 cables in their systems.  I spent about $60 on two 6’ sets because I have a switch in my cables to support my home theater setup.

I enjoyed the sound of the Micca 14 cables as they had essentially no glare/harshness and were truly easy to listen to  The trade off was in the clarity and detail and the deep bass lost its definition  Sometimes when doing comparisons I don’t have the expected response when I swap back to the baseline. In this case, it was music to my ears.  I strongly prefer my Blue Jeans Cable 10AWG speaker cables in my system.  I lean towards clarity over warmth, but did appreciate the total lack of edginess with the Micca14 cables  

I learned early in life that cables do matter. An elementary school friend of mine and I used to make backyard walkie-talkies with two tin cans and some kite string. I found that more expensive kite string sounded better than regular kite string. I never tested to see whether or not the name brand vegetable cans sounded better than the off brand cans. As an adult, I connect my Personas with 12 gauge oxygen free copper wire. That sounds as good as any other wire I’ve tried.

Just purchased a pair of Nordost Frey 2’s which replaced, still have, WyWires Silver Series. First the WyWires are wonderful cables that throw a huge stage and the first speaker cables I’ve owned that made my speakers disappear.  
 

Well, as good as the WyWires are, which mine are three series down from Alex’s best are nowhere close to the Frey 2. More everything, hearing micro details in recordings I have known for years and great recordings sound like the performers are in my room, average and some not so great recordings sound better. The upgrade was like getting a speaker upgrade, not subtle.

Yes, speaker cables make a difference, and I’ll stick to my earlier comment that speaker cables in my opinion can make the biggest or most noticeable difference between cables. Yes, there is a significant cost difference between these speaker cables, and the difference is there.