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

NoNoise....significant "differences" are moot.  What is important is whether there are significant "improvements."  Science says overpriced cables are just that.  Over priced, pretty, sparkly, fat, colorful and interesting...just not accoustically effective in my opinion.

Small differences may be worth it...but given the power of expectation bias, seems most would want some measure of effectiveness beyond the overstated claims of how "good it sounded.". 

I've been reading this thread almost daily and can appreciate everyone's points of view.  Unlike some though, I do see value in ctsooner's and others' more recent posts as well.  I've posted my views previously on my own experience trying a lot of cables from dirt cheap to inexpensive to mid-priced to 'expensive' and back down the price slope several times culminating in what I use today (and the even more expensive cables I've evaluated them against).  The fact is, I've heard differences in all sorts of cables; both those I could afford and those I could not; I've settled on a combination that I truly hear the difference and that help make a musical experience that is of the type I am after.

Trust me when I tell you I am not happy about the dollars it has taken to make this journey or (no matter how much I love the current sound) what it takes to maintain or better it.  The fact does remain however that whenever I have pulled cables out of the system and gone to mono-priced or similar, sound stage collapses, imaging goes to hell and the overall musical experience suffer dramatically.  I would also ask you to trust that if I could achieve the sound I have today for less dollars spent on cables and that money put elsewhere, I definitely would.

I'm sure that this post will draw either much criticism from the cable detractors or price skeptics among you (whose opinions and points of view I do respect as I think the whole cable and high-end market is tragically over-priced by the way...) however, the truth is in the listening for me in my system (having nothing to do with what others should/do experience).

One key point that keeps hitting me squarely between the eyes about this thread though is that I see myriad references to real science, scientific method, etc...on this thread but when I read through everything carefully and objectively, I don't see real science or scientific method being utilized. I see scientific jargon being utilized to justify a point of view but little if any real science or hard test results being presented regarding cables good or bad .

***I will say for the record that I could be dead wrong in what I am perceiving here and my point of view so please know my intent in saying what I have here is not to offend anyone....

"One key point that keeps hitting me squarely between the eyes about this thread though is that I see myriad references to real science, scientific method, etc...on this thread but when I read through everything carefully and objectively, I don’t see real science or scientific method being utilized. I see scientific jargon being utilized to justify a point of view but little if any real science or hard test results being presented regarding cables good or bad."

That’s what naysayers do.  The way they’ve always done it, the way they'll always do it. You know what I’m taking about: Science cannot not allow it. You can’t disobey the laws of science. Anyone who knows science knows it. Anyone who ever took 12th grade science knows (blah blah blah). This is what naysayers have been saying for 40 years. Why on Earth would they stop now?

from Zen and the Art of Debunkery,

"Seeing with humility, curiosity and fresh eyes was once the main point of science. But today it is often a different story. As the scientific enterprise has been bent toward exploitation, institutionalization, hyperspecialization and new orthodoxy, it has increasingly preoccupied itself with disconnected facts in a psychological, social and ecological vacuum. So disconnected has official science become from the greater scheme of things, that it tends to deny or disregard entire domains of reality and to satisfy itself with reducing all of life and consciousness to a dead physics."

Thanks Geof.  That's why I asked if naysayer has even heard the cable I reference in my system.  I see no science or test results that show one way or the other.  I respect the heck out of science and physics.  My daughter i nearly complete in her physics degree and always discusses scientific facts etc...She also looks for things that may be missed.  

we can all go back and forth and probably will, but in the end it's like everything else in audio.  Individual and up to each of us to audition and chose what sounds best to US in OUR rooms.  

It's discussions like this that keep forums hot though and fun to hang out in.