why do people feel the need to buy expensive cable

Hi calvinj,  good to see you,  Dave Baskin's wife has his cable's for sale here on audiogon,  yes! , they are the taralab's Evolution Grandmaster sp speaker cable's,  funny though,  she put gmev, abbreviation's for Grandmaster,  however,  she got the ev incorrect,  supposed to be sp, that is even more high end and cost more than the standard taralab's Evolution Grandmaster speaker cable's,  I believe she is going to liquidate his whole system,  is the store still open for business? 

Best to sweep this discussion under the rug . We don't want to hurt cable sales .

Funny that Tara Labs would come up....that is one of the other cable manufacturers that I have owned and experienced and they make some awesome stuff.  What get's my gander up is the likes of Analysis Plus or Nordost...non musical in my book!

I think one of the biggest reasons that people cannot hear a difference in cables is that their equipment is not resolving enough. .Whether it is an amp or speakers .. etc.
For many years i could not ever hear a difference in digital cables . I changed to a different  amp  , and i could then hear differences.

I completely agree!  Note that if you HAVE spent mega-bucks on interconnects or speaker cables, there is not a chance in hell that you (on this forum) would EVER change you mind that THAT purchase must have made your system sound better - even if you cannot hear it.  It is called the audio placebo effect.  If you put out the big-bucks on cables, a better sub a DAC or just about any component, once you get it installed your system WILL sound better.  It is proof positive that, on some products, if you overcharge you will sell more to the duped masses.

Some time ago, I replaced the Kimber (speaker) cables that came with a slightly used pair of B&W 803's with a 10 dollar set of Monoprice cables.  I had no way to do a "blind" A/B test but after I switched them out those 803's continued to sweetly sing...no difference that I could tell.