Is it all in my head??

@kumakahn: If you can record ~5000 samples of 10sec audio clips approx 50/50 split between cable A and cable B, then we can attempt to train a deep LSTM neural network to distinguish the two.   If the computer can learn a difference, then we can work on reverse engineering what it picked up on.

@kumakahn, 

It seems to me, a few decades back, AudioQuest wrote a "manifesto" about what they considered to be worthwhile goals in wire design. I read it, and for the most part, it is about as good a reference as any manufacturer ever produced in layman's terms. The only problem with it was that, while the principles appeared to be rather valid, AQ itself hardly ever followed its own advice altogether in any single cable design of theirs that I ever saw...they were usually compromised, by their own definition, one way or another. 

...not that AQ had any kind of lock on compromised wire designs.

Nobody really knows why or how these things work. If anyone ever did then in no time flat everyone else would too and the resulting competition would drive prices to the floor. That hasn't happened. Because no one has a clue. Just stories they tell to customers who haven't yet figured out design don't mean squat. How it sounds is all that matters. So really, they don't design, they experiment. When you have to throw away a hundred that sound like crap to find one that sounds good then of course you have to charge a fortune for that one percenter. But then not all "designers" even get to the 1%. When you can't sell the sound, sell the story. Always some engineer or wannabe who can't hear (or won't trust his own ears- happens, trust me) eager to buy the story. This is power cords, interconnects, speaker cables (everything, really- turntables, speakers, cones, footers, equipment racks, on and on, the whole friggen industry) in a nutshell.

Kimber braided cables presumably reduce external noise, you know, from an engineering perspective. So where’s the beef? 🐂