why do people feel the need to buy expensive cable

And agreed,...we are all friggin' nuts anyway!

We are willing to pay so much more for small improvements. If it brings you joy. Why not?

Until the next fix? I guess "joy" is relative and personal, but is it really the reason, or result? Looking back, does your current system bring you any more joy than the high school or college system you used while listening to The Who, Allman Bros., Santana, or whoever, in their prime?

Mitch2, excellent point. It's something I don't think most audiophiles can deal with.

The latest "Stereophile" has Micheal Fremer describing his experience with some of the better/best Tara cables. It seems their top model had to be re-engineered because they weren't an improvement over a previous model. He brings it up to point out that it's not all about price, but actually about what one hears. The reworked cable ultimately, in Fremer's opinion, easily bested the previous model. I don't remember the exact prices but the new cable was north of $40k and the previous model was around $25k. Small but important improvements. There's a sound logic to this way of thinking, but at what point is it aural masturbation?

Mitch2, you have nailed it....I remember listening to the world premier of the new Pink Floyd album, Animals on WYSP in Philadelphia. My aural thrills were courtesy of a Panasonic military style radio with a single 6" speaker! I was enthralled:)

To be very clear hear, Michael had a wide band amplifier, taralabs did not have to rework the Grandmaster interconnect at all, rather, the speaker cable, it is called the Grandmaster sp speaker cable's, yes, the sp cost $3,000.000 more, it's a higher inductance speaker cable to give a wide band amplifier rich lucrative sound,and as I recall, Michael has the Omega Evolution speaker cable's, not the Grandmaster, however, both models have sp version's, happy listening.