I’m still surprised that people cannot hear differences in cables. For me, nothing could be easier, and a few of my non-audiophile friends I’ve given cables to, hear it, and they can even identify what they hear cogently.
But then, my friends were either conductors, play acoustic instruments or it was their major/minor in college, so they KNOW when a cable is correctly reproducing triple-tonguing, or dotted quarter notes. And given I set up their system, and eliminated noise by arranging cables carefully (which means, NOT on top of each other, especially a power cord touching a signal interconnect (speaker cable or interconnect) and an excellent anti-vibration platform (I have Critical Mass Center Stage footers). I think too many systems lack the resolution to hear this, but I still think it is more the noise that people induce by stacking components or, as I’ve already said, cables touching each other.
A good cable should make it clear that one is hearing a Stradivarius, not a Guarneri or an Amati. It would be helpful for people to at least have a passing acquaintance with live music - and I don’t mean the amplified kind. And the number of people familiar with live music seems pretty dismal to me. So, it is not a surprise that there is so much dismissiveness among the people coming into the High End in the past 20 years over things like cable.
