Question for cable/wire naysayers.....

A lot of the difficulty in obtaining audible differences in cables can be placed right at the door of wire directionality. A cable or interconnect in the wrong direction just won’t sound right. I’m referring to unshielded cables. But even shielded cables would sound better if they were manufactured with wire directionality in mind. Also cable comparisons must be performed slowly. It takes a day or two for the mechanical electrical interface of the cable connector to be reestablished. Ditto the power cord plug.

Cables (PC, SC and interconnects) absolutley make a difference and those who take issue with that statement haven't tried cables at the right level, don't have gear where it will really makes much difference or don't have the ear for this hobby.  I have tried and upgraded various cables over the years with, as one would expect, varying results but always some measure of improvement.  Most recently, I upgraded Acoustic Zen SC to Synergistic Research Atmoshphere Level 4.  Wow - what an improvement - across all comparison criteria.  That caused me to switch out all my Shunyata Anaconda IC's to SR Atmosphere Level 4's.  Again; the improvement was undeniably discernable, even by sceptical listeners (wider, deeper, clearer, more "real").  At that point, I honestly didn't think I could wring out any further improvements to my system by cable upgrades until I tried the new Synergistic Galileo UEF interconnects.  I was the sceptic then when someone suggested they were palpably better than the level 4's in, again. a very obvious way.  They clearly were (no pun intended).  I have upgraded to the Galileo UEF Interconnects and they are the absolute bomb.

I believe in the sufficiency argument. Once you get to the level of a competently engineered cable, there is no ROI beyond that. As been said in this forum and other places, if you spend more on speaker cables and interconnects than what you can find at Blue Jeans Cable, you’ve spent too much.

I find the talk about skin effects (stranded vs. solid) to be baseless. A lifetime ago, I worked for a test and measurement company that had to measure electrical signals in the radio frequency (RF) range. We had to use exotic substrates and different metalization schemes to deal with skin effect and insertion loss but this was for signals starting in the GHz range. Audio is in the Hz and KHz range; at least a 1Mx below that threshold. These cable marketing guys borrow selectively from the electrical engineering lexicon to sound competent.

I’d take the exotic cable money and spend it on better speakers and hear a real difference.

Different speaker cables, for example, sound differently from one another because each ALTERS the signal giving you the illusion of more air, deeper soundstage, more bass, etc.

If you truly want to hear what your amplifier sounds like, the most logical approach would be to have speaker wire that is exactly the same wire that goes to your amp’s binding posts. Also, the same wire should go from your speaker’s binding posts to its drivers.

One must use some common sense here. Adding some boutique speaker cables does not unlock something magical hidden inside your amp. Also, and I dispise when people use this expression, cables don’t "get out of the way of the music". That’s the biggest load of BS in audio. In fact, it's just the opposite. The differences in cabling you hear is the cable doing something to the signal.

Newsflash: Your audio components do not have $4,000 wiring inside. If you truly wanted to get out of the way of the music, your interconnects and speaker cables would be the same as what’s inside. The sound you perceive to be different is because boutique cabling alters the original signal to the point where it’s so manipulated you hear more of this, or less of that.

I wish I read a post like this 21 years ago. Maybe some young audiophile will read this one.