Who thinks $5K speaker cable really better than generic 14AWG cable?

I don't recall being that impressed (to put it kindly) with McIntosh gear regarding their status as high end, resolving gear. They do have the looks and their laurels to rest on to further their product line but aside from that.....

The point is that high end gear is necessary for the ability to hear differences and yet doesn't have to be costly. We've all (hopefully) traveled that path and are now at a point where a small change can and will extract it's pound of flesh.

Trained ears and the discipline developed to hear differences serves as a base point for all critical listening, which allows just plain old listening for pleasure's sake.

For every Roger Russell who's in the "all cable needs to be...."  crowd there's a Professor Hawksford who says otherwise:
"I am not trying to say that this effect is necessarily significant, only that an error component is predicted by our theory and is shown by our measurements to exist."

Citing someone will only bring up someone else.

Who's to say that those differences aren't audible? I don't know of any study that says ALL cables measure the same. I've yet to see one. They are always different, albeit to small and varying degrees.

Our ears are incredibly refined instruments and like any instrument, can be tuned to detect differences of very small magnitudes. Tests show this to be true. I think what harms intelligent discussion is the standard yardsticks we use to measure, or rather, that some of us insist that those standard yardsticks are the ONLY measurement to go by. They are nothing more than gross generalizations. Rounding errors for simplicities sake.

Just as no two wires will measure identically, no two ears will either. I can hear small differences and have learned to appreciate them over the long haul. Others can too. 

"Nuff said.

All the best,
Nonoise

Apparently, the shoe fit!  Last thing I need, Dynaquest, is a deaf mom, telling me what to do, listen to, how to comprehend or spend.  Unlike you, I'm capable of allowing another to their ubiquitous(generally vapid), "Last Word".

Wonderful....then go and sin no more!  rodman

The biggest problem I have with audio claims, is how the comparisons are made.  I’ve learned that if there are differences, I want to hear them from someone who is making instantaneous A/B comparisons.  It’s the only way our little brains can keep up with differences - if there are any.  I’ve learned first hand from amp comparisons, if they’re level matched and I’m quickly A/Bing - I can’t hear a difference...  

Moving on to cables - I don’t have experience comparing cables in a reliable setting - but this guy did: http://www.dagogo.com/audio-by-van-alstine-abx-comparator-review-part-3-new-twists-conclusion
I thought it was interesting that he couldn’t discern amps, but he did pick up on cable differences...

Doing a "blind test" in a store will not change the fact that cables make a difference. 

And, When you move some cables around, the sound will become fuzzy  after you move them, and the distinguishing characteristics of each cable is lessened to the point where they all sound alike. My Nordost and Shunyata are like this, and I’ve also owned Transparent’s top cables as well as MIT and XLO. 

HOWEVER, when I first started out, I was not knowledgeable enough to know to leave cables alone for an hour or two (yes, I’ve timed it myself, using Ella Fitzgerald and Nat King Cole albums, because voice will tell you everything you want to know) before playing. The fact that your second dealer (or the first one, for that matter), has tin ears, proves nothing.  A local dealer I know, (and his system is pretty expensive) has disappointing sound for something with ARC, Wilsons and Transparent. And the contours of the music, dynamically, tonally AND spatially??? It’s not in evidence in this system. Unbelievable almost, but true.
 
People use "the dealer says" as a substitute for saying, "The AUTHORITY stated..." Dealers don’t necessarily know music, you know. And they don't necessarily know how to set equipment up. There's more to it than plonking it down on a rack and playing, something that is routine now, but 30 years ago, the setups were more meticulous. Look at the audio shows: even THEY don't get everything set up right the first day of the show. 

If you’re going to test cords, take them home and install them yourself. On YOUR system. and then leave it alone for two hours and play it. Then change the cords, leave alone for a while again.
There are no shortcuts here. The differences among components - mostly amps and preamps - are more easily discernible than cables, because nothing is moving around in the amps and preamps, whereas, with cables, you’re stretching the cable and twisting them. I’ve NO idea what goes on inside, but I’ve owned the most expensive things around, and cables do not react well to being moved.

Your experiment was not truly a controlled experiment, not to mention blind tests are not a good way to determine quality. I see people on here who buy cables and complain it doesn't sound 'good'. Lets take Shunyata, since I know them best. There are people who buy Shunyata’s cables and after 40 hours comment on them and say, ugh, they’re dark. By now, any decent thread will inform you that Shunyata’s Zi-Tron cables will take around 400 hours before they lose their constricted sound, yet people write interviews based on 200 hours of play. I assume they don’t know not to write a review until the product is fully broken in and some products take that long (CJ with their Teflon capacitors, and anyone else who uses Teflon). Shunyata, incidentally, says, 200 hours, but in 14 years of having owned Shunyata products (speaker cables, power cords, interconnects), I have yet to find the component's fully burned in at 200 hours. BUT. They may use a different breaking method, although they champion "heavy" fans left on. 
I’ve bought expensive cables since 1986 and I can hear the differences among MIT, Transparent, XLO, Furutech, Goertz, Shunyata (I own many Shunyata cords and signal cables), Nordost (ditto). The only ones that sounded very alike were the Goertz and the Nordost, a finding that two Absolute Sound reviewers (one of them was HP) parroted when they did their review. HP said he wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the two easily. However, he then added a caveat in this review: that you could hear much more easily the differences between the two cables IF YOU USED VINYL INSTEAD OF DIGITAL. A good point if one wants to get to the truth the fastest. I’ll guess your dealer used digital. Well, that’s no crime, but it led you to the wrong conclusion.
Cables a ripoff??? Well,yes, the pricing is obscene for many of the top brands. The upside? They do make a difference. Even my tin-eared friend hears that.
Your dealer’s setup sounds like it needs fine tuning. Do you know the components he used? Are you familiar with ALL of the components, because you're just guessing otherwise. Far too many dealers to not take time to set up their equipment flawlessly, and I include at least one of the legendary stores in New York, Lyric. The one time I went to audition an amplifier in there, it sounded flat-out horrible. Knowing Harry wouldn’t have praised it (the ASL Hurricanes) that highly if it wasn’t that good, I just bought the amps, instead, from another dealer and it was magical. So, if I’d gone by that test, I’d never have bought the amp. I knew Harry, so I knew if he said it was phenomenal, then it was.
With the equipment you have at home, you should be able to hear differences without much strain. Listen on your OWN system, AFTER the components are broken in. ALL of them. And find out how many hours your dealers have on components they use for demonstrations. Too many things are wrong in your premise, but especially ’The Great Cable Ripoff’ caper.