Why high-end cable manufacturers don't post measurements?

First the disclosure. I am an engineer and I have been working in the research and development of technical products since the early 70's. One of the issues that always comes up is "why is your product better" and a few people will ask "can you put a number on it".

Audio products present a unique challenge, everyone has an opinion on what is best. So, how do you even go about developing a scale of "goodness" when there is no agreement on what is good. When you consider basics like impedance it is not difficult to produce a cable that meets the requirements to perform the basic function of transmitting a signal well, so why bother publishing this information. On the other hand, why would an engineer tell anyone, outside of the decision group, about any measurements which may be useful in developing a competing product?

If you have ever been involved in doing blind testing to determine the performance level of a system, you are probably aware of the difficulties in analyzing such data. There are ways to do this type of analysis, using such an analysis in developing a scale which will predict the performance of a system is more than a little elusive. Maybe, just maybe, a study of the history of the development of cables will yield some insight into this issue. The major issue in developing a scale is, what is better in terms of the performance.

Mr. audio-union

I’m also in the R&D of technical products since the early 80’s.
I have Analog boards in the IEFCC of the F-16 and more.
The point with Speaker Cables, is that no one ever figured out what should they be like. All use a #12 or #14 awg wire, just because it’s easy to work with, and tell some voodoo tells about why it is special. Well, it's NOT!
Even sport shoes have more variety than that.

The correct way to fit a Speaker Cables is to calculate its resistance value, vs length and the Amp’s DF. As you claim to be an engineer and work in R&D, I assume that every design of your went to a calculation phas, Proof of Design (POD) and a process of Design reviews: PDR, CDP etc’.
This is a simple and most required process to get the right cable at the first attempt. Just as our designs were. I can not imagine an airborne unit to be made and tested as a speaker cable. For an R&D engineer, its a shame.

And here is the problem. Why is it that you cannot have a civil convo, instead of attacking and degrading someone who seems to have different ideas than you. That’s what seems to be the shame. B4, I did not not hear any mention of testing involving listening, or tuning based on the listening results. Are you trying to say that cable manufacturers do not do this, or maybe your field of expertise is not in the audio cable business so you are not familiar with is part of the process. The engineering done at a cable manufacturer isn’t done to just meet some numbers they’re trying to reach and your post seems to indicate, but instead it designed to meet some goals they set at the start of the design process in terms of what they are trying to improve upon, meaning the sound. That’s the end goal, or at least I would hope should be with a cable. The engineering is done to meet those goals. They may set a measurement they are trying to hit to achieve that goal, but once they do, it will still go to the listening phase to see if they did achieve the desired results. As anyone who has dealt with a very high performance race engine knows ( a hobby for me), the measurements can help greatly, but sometimes it’s our understanding of what they mean that is at issue. Sometimes you will find that the numbers don’t get the expected results, and when in the end something different works, we have to then come up with the logic that explains why. There is an explanation, and usually it’s because there are so many variables that we find a new variable affected things in a way we did not realize it would. If you refuse to even consider variables past a preset list, you may forever be stuck at the same point. Not exactly on the same point now, but still relevant to many who post about such things. 

speedbump6, it sounds to me like you understand the difference between the numbers and test performance performance and the search is to figure out what is not being taken into account in the calculations. From my work on cable design I have found there are some factors (if you think of it as a factor in an equation system) which influence the perceived performance, but are not commonly taught in engineering classes. 

In the case of audio, not ever one likes the same thing. So, sell customers what they want or don't bother with that particular customer at all. I often pass on particular customers completely, but I may ask them if they have experienced I particular design they might like even when it is not my design. I try to be helpful when I can, but only if I think the potential customer may appreciate it.

Racing was a hobby of mine, to old for it now.

@audio-union
Very interesting comments.  It would absolutely be a challenge, perhaps impossible, to analyze blind testing data to develop a scale to predict system performance.  However, I don't think that's what double blind testing is really about.  It is about whether you can reliably (consistently) hear a difference between two things - something that can be reported flawlessly and which many audio product claims fail.