why do people feel the need to buy expensive cable

Here is a way to explain the overpriced cables : Take and compare a $5000 amplifier with a $5000 cable . Lets take a close look at the materials and costs to build both . Amplifier - God knows how many actual parts ? Think of the labor involved in making it . Now look at the cable . You have a handful of materials to assemble . How many companies smelt and extrude the wire themselves ? If they outsource this they are paying materials and a hour of assembly , packaging .. ect 

Maplegrovemusic, no I was not referring to you.  You presented strawman argument, since people are only sharing their experiences not telling others how much money they have to spend.  If anything I found people telling others, that spending money on cables is silly, that they are cheated by manufactures, that lamp cord from Home Depot is just fine.  Even title of this thread suggests it.

Well, I just had friends over for a beer and some listening after swapping my entry level brand X cables ($400msrp) out from the monitors (tweeter/midrange) and replaced them with the same brand X extreme level ($1650) cable. I also replaced fuses (a slim wire on the mains) with Hi-Fi fuses in the preamp and phonostage.

The remarkable thing is I had noted a particular sweetening in upper frequencies and a much greater "humanness" and focus to the vocal bits, and a lose of edginess and slight grain to some upper frequency details. They noted the same and then we talked about the wire changes. It was more musical.

For me, this was a system upgrade worth the expense, especially since I bought the wire on A’gon used 9/10, already burned-in, and the fuses had a 30 day trial guarantee, of which I will not be taking advantage.

So, to my ears, (and wallet) this was a totally acceptable trade in treasure for performance. Whether or not this had anything to do with a "wire" purchase, I could not have cared less. It was a sound improvement. And this makes a case for feeling the need to buy expensive cables. Because they can work in the context of a "system".

great , we got melbguy back . Took a cable discussion to do it . Now the sharks are all in the water circling .

I am not saying i will never spend more money than i do now . Once i have tried all the wire with costs that are warranted i might be curious to try more wires . I do not expect better results because they cost more . Just read an article where the owner of Shunyata made claims that other Wire companies actually use inferior wire in the base model so there next level sounds better . So with that theory their mid priced would be on par with non audiophile producers of wire . Disregard the melbguy statement above . Must have been reading a different page when i responded