Do your ears deceive you?

@coralkong - simple for us, but not so for the many audiophiles who may have just started out with perhaps less developed listening ability - I was one once, you see. As with trained photographers, who observe and see with great skill, learning how to listen is no different - except that it is compounded by so many more variables and nuance. While it takes just over 26 frames per second to see moving picture, the ear operates at a level in the tens of that, complicating our ability to listen with accuracy even further. 
So yes, while it appears simple in conclusion, it definitely isn’t when there’s an entire world to parse through in the realm of the time domain that is music  ; )

In friendship - kevin.

Nonsense. This isn’t a scientific forum. No one here owes you any "rigorous" explanation or any other kind of proof, although of course you’re free to conduct your own experiments and share the results. If the empirical evidence described by users here is insufficient for you, perhaps you are in the wrong place.

@cleeds

I think you misread me. I don’t require any explanation. Evidence described by user’s perceptions are perfectly adequate for me, with no further claims or explanations beyond that. If they like it, they like it. Period. But, if the manufacturer starts making technical claims, it is scorn worthy if they don’t back it up. If they’re not going to back it up, why make a technical claim in the first place? If it’s just how users perceive it, who cares how it works? Why bother with all the technical hocus pocus, or credentials of the person who designed it? If it works, it works!

I’m not curious enough about it to do any formal testing myself. I’ve listened, and since my listening skills aren’t good enough to be impressed, I’ll leave it to those who can perceive what the fuss is all about and are curious about how it actually works to do those kinds of experiments. This is my selfish side. I’m interested in things I can hear, things that matter to me. I hear a lot of problems with 2 speaker stereo. Even though it sounds quite good, it’s a hack job way of creating stereo sound. I’ve got much bigger fish to fry than cable improvements. The problem is, I have no reasonable idea how to fry them.

The cables question is ill-formed.

I would agree that there is a difference between the worst and the best. There are many physical properties to consider: Resistance; Capacitance; Inductance; Dielectric Absorption; RF rejection; connection integrity..

So yes, there are differences based on physical principles, and understood to physics. Are they important? Yes - but system dependent. If you seek transparency, then that's easy - decent connectors and quality cabling like Canare will set you up nicely, and be somewhat better than lamp cord.

But, for example, if you have an over-bright system, then a high resistance, high capacitance, high inductance, high DA cable may correct it to the point of listenability. Of course, you might do lots better with better components, but cables do make a difference. They are just the worst way to do it. IMO.

@steakster I can't believe you are calling out some of the biggest shysters in the industry as credible.  I'm surprised you didn't include Ted Denney.

As for the rest, I do NOT, under ANY circumstances, believe that any of these companies do anything more with Quantum-whatever than misquote, bend and stretch truth, and use to deceive gullible audiophiles with meaningless word salad and pseudo-scientific nonsense.  Some of the claims of these companies are so preposterous that it is astounding that ANYONE would believe them.

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