What do audiophiles want from a cable?

I agree jmcgrogan2 in that I go for what sounds good to me. It's all part of what I call voicing my system, an exercise that has included not only the cabling but also the speaker crossover components, the tubes used in the preamp & amp, the power cords, and the power conditioning system. In my experience the synergy of the cabling is system dependent. This past year I changed amps and felt a need to adjust the voice of the system. I got in three new interconnects to audition. In my system there was one that was the clear winner (to me as well as a two friends who were over).  We took the show on the road over to my friends' systems and a different cable each time was unanimously considered to be the best system match (as always the caveat of personal taste notwithstanding). 

My answer to the original question about what I (sic) want from the cabling is that I want it to be an effective part of a musical system that allows me to connect emotionally with the music, and the attributes that permit that vary by individual.  Several system incarnations ago I had a rig that I described as letting me connect intellectually with the music in that I could talk about which sonic attributes it was doing well, but it still wasn't adding up to an emotionally engaging experience, and that is my ultimate, albeit personal, criteria. 

@reynolds853   Amen.

Its a tweak to help fine tune  the sound when needed once all the common bigger issues are addressed. 

Sorry, don't use em. The best cable is no cable. Ditto power cords.

terry9, you can see the associated equipment on my system page.  It is resolving enough of an audio setup for cable differences to be audible and sometimes shockingly different.  It surprises me often the sonic attributes and shortcomings of difference cable.  

An inferior cable in the system will always change the presentation for the worst.  The words lifeless, unrefined, and uninvolving come to mind first when attempting to describe what happens to the system' presentation of the music with an inferior cable in place.  It loses the ability to do its best work.

Performance lost is performance lost period.  The presentation can be incorrect tonally, musical passages with lots of instrumentation can be jumbled and unresolved.  Lyrical content can be more difficult to comprehend.  Bass can be less accurate, too boomy or too weak.  With inferior cable music can seem rolled off at frequency extremes and have less dynamic capability.  These differences are real and many have experienced this.  I can't understand why so many deny it, when the positive attributes of implementing well designed cabling is significant in my listening space.  It took lots of trail and error and break in time is a pain, but in the end when you have cables that perform well with good equipment, the musical experience is certainly enhanced.  The result is an accurately reproduced, expansive, and extremely lifelike presentation of the tunes that is pleasurable!