No, your cables did not sound worse; you needed to adjust once again after working with mixes of cables. Nothing unusual here. I build hundreds of systems literally, and what you are describing is common. It is called anchoring, and it's the inability to quickly shift allegiance to a new standard, sort of a hangover effect of the ears/mind. Many times I had the same experience you describe when rolling dozens of different sets of discrete opamps in DACs. Again, this is nothing out of the ordinary, but it is not electronics and cables changing performance.
It also happens when speakers I have owned for years are put into the system. It used to take a week to get used to the different technology, even though I owned and used them many times back and forth in systems. Now, it still takes about 2 days to recapture the familiarity of the sound.
Cables do not get magically better or worse with use. If you set them up exactly as they were initially, you got the same result as previously. You may disagree, but I am not going to argue about it. :)
It also happens when speakers I have owned for years are put into the system. It used to take a week to get used to the different technology, even though I owned and used them many times back and forth in systems. Now, it still takes about 2 days to recapture the familiarity of the sound.
Cables do not get magically better or worse with use. If you set them up exactly as they were initially, you got the same result as previously. You may disagree, but I am not going to argue about it. :)