How can we hear the difference in cables in a bad room?

Probably because a major portion of the sound (with conventional speakers) is direct, assuming that you are facing the speakers.

DeKay

Just think about it! a power cable - why can you hear a difference? is it a timing issue, noise? are the human hearing much more sensitiv to delay / phase issues than frequencies.

If you have knowledge in this area then I would love to be educated (:

People love to make up reasons why. Being at it going on 50 years now my preference is to go with what works. While the rest are enjoying arguing about why I'm enjoying sounds they can only dream of. Actually maybe not even dream. If their imagination is as stifled as their intellect that would stand to reason.

My experience, after trying lots of frankly pretty lame stuff, like a telephone book under or over a CD player, one day got a set of Black Diamond Racing Cones. The improvement with these things was so spectacular I could hardly believe it. Seriously, literally, hardly believe it.

So I started taking them around with me everywhere. Well they fit in the pocket easily enough. Must have tried them under literally at least a hundred different components in almost as many systems. CD players, tuners, tape decks, pre-amps, amps, speakers, budget to extreme high end you name it. 

A few examples just to drive home the depth of meaning of "you name it". A Goodwill $5 all-in-one with hair thin wires going to cheesy speakers sitting on the classic this plank across two trunks is my furniture, and this steamer trunk is my coffee table, if you get the picture. A friends Pioneer integrated near the top of a stack of at least half a dozen things (VCR, CDP, Tuner, etc) stacked one on top of the other, rats nest of wires and dust devils behind with two unequal length lamp cords running 20 and 50 feet to speakers in a room with a sliding glass door between them. And one of my favorites, the car audio retailer who let me put them under the crossover network of some speakers on his demo panel. Just loosened the screws, stuck em in there, tightened back down, and heard it.

The friends rats nest was the hardest to hear, mostly because he wouldn't shut up and stop telling me how it couldn't possibly work long enough to hear anything.

Oh and by the way, you asked about power cords. Same deal. Only using Cones because that's the one been tried the most by far. But same exact deal goes with power cords, speaker cables, interconnects. Same. Exact. Deal.

Again, I am happy to let others go round and round endlessly jibber jabbering about why. We report. You decide.

The only answer that I can see that fits all the evidence is the one you already gave: "the human hearing much more sensitiv" which is right, only you then went on to limit this with phase and frequency. 

Which may or may not be right. Again, not playing that game. Even if it is probably right. Because why? What's the point? Being able to nail some nerds question on a forum no one reads anyway? 

What definitely is true is people can hear these things. Remember I said hundreds of systems? Countless times here is what would happen. The dude who proudly bought it all sits and strains and doubts and questions and goes back and forth. Meanwhile honey in the kitchen who never even came in the room shouts out, "Is that the 4 again? Because his voice sounds so much better with that one! Get the 4!" Dude goes right back to straining, face scrunched up even more now.

Am NOT kidding. Am NOT making this up. Happened so many times its NOT funny. (See: What is wrong with audiophiles?) 

The only thing in all of this that makes any sense is things like cones and power cords, fuses, Omega E-mats, TPC, ECT, HFT, Cable Elevators, there are all kinds of different ways they can affect the sound. And you can argue and argue about what they are. Does. Not. Matter! Point is they make an audible difference. Which if honey can hear it, then for sure you can learn to hear it too.

My room and, especially, my set up sucks.  But the benefits and toll taken by cables are easily heard.  I think the neutrality of the system as much as the technical proficiency - detail, taughtness and such -play a part too.   A colored system will easily cover up any subtle cable benefits whether it’s the equipment or the room.  It’s how badly they are colored and do they complement each other that matters.  

Hi OP,
I've thought about this and read a little bit.


I think the answer is that our brain spends a LOT of time and effort filtering out room acoustics. There's been research done for instance on how much more tiring having a meeting or studying in a bad sounding room is. Your brain is literally splitting energy between hearing speakers, hearing the room, separating one from the other and also attempting to learn and assimilate more data.


Based on visiting a few audio conferences I've come to the conclusion that people vary a lot in how sensitive to this they are. 

For me, my audio room HAS to be well treated, and after a day of working in an open cubicle environment, to my brain it is like going to a mountain top and being able to see for miles. It's soothing.

Here's a really good way to show what I'm talking about. Take a recording of people talking in a room, or just of your system playing music.

Then listen on head phones. Magically, you hear all the room acoustics for the first time, and once you practice, you can learn to hear it in the room in real time.

What this shows to me is that we do hear those room acoustics, but our brain is actively routing them into the trash for us.