Initial disappointment with 1st set of “expensive’ IC’s...

Well OP at least your honest with yourself and others. Some would have us believe their word is gospel. It’s not. If you can’t distinguish between different cables, join the crowd. A LOT of the old zips and off the spool cabling were OK.. BUT a sonic difference?.. More like ear plugs in your ears..

Things have changed..

Cables BREAK IN, they don’t burn in, for the 10,000th time.. Things BURN UP, they don’t burn in. The exception is a "24 hour burn in" on valves (tubes). Everything BREAKS IN.

Copper if it’s assembled correctly by LOOKING at the way it was put through the dyes, assembled, and conditioned (cooked), makes all the difference in the world. From plug in, to rout and play. It takes about 24 hours and up to 100 hours or so with copper. Silver and silver clads.. hundreds of hours..

The CRAP people say... 1940s crap from some long lost dead guy’s quote from Mcintosh... or something.. EVEN Mcintosh change their tune about cabling.. Took long enough.. Over 15 years NOW...

Blind testing cables is worthless, just worthless... No reason to do or advocate it. We are not trying to please the masses, just ourselves. What part of ME not YOU don’t folks understand.. Stereo ism, is not the same as McDonald ism. Quit lumping toaster repair standards in with listening to a stereo and it’s cabling.. Different comes to mind...

Must be tough not to be able to LEARN with a SEA of information to the contrary. Just amazing.. I know we are the only one’s in the the whole universe too.. Look up for God sakes...

Wake up CAVE MEN and WOMEN. It’s quite all right to admit your wrong.. But argue cable DON’T make a difference or they BURN IN.
At least act like you’re smart.. Quit showing you’re DUMB.
Mouth shut, ears open... what a concept..."It’s like teaching Klingons". (Grand Nagus Zek, Star Trek, SD9).

Semi Regards... A 5 out of 10 on the regards scale...

I wonder if anybody has ever put together two identical systems except for the cables and done  listening tests? Seems like the only way to get around the qualifiers that you can’t move a cable and it Has to burn/break in for hundreds of hours. Any dealers out there who have tried this?

@oldhvy With respect, can you explain why people getting the terms “break” and “burn” conflated sets you off? I am asking dispassionately. What is it about that misuse of language that mangles the logic of the topic? You don’t seem the sort of guy to nitpick, so I’m honestly seeking your clarification. 

" The difference between cables should be obvious the moment you swap one for another."

Not true, that is why A-B tests are flawed. Many times I have been listening to familiar music and heard sound clues I had never heard before, weeks or month later. That brush stroke, fingers rubbing on guitar strings, increased or diminished depth or width, background sounds created by the musician touching the instruments, decay, pitch, vocals becoming more clear or smeared, etc.

If one hears a difference in a A-B comparison in an instant, how can one know it is better or worse, long term?

@dill I too have heard differences only after some period of time has passed. What’s hard for me is that I cannot tell if that is due to the equipment or to my own ability --or changed interest -- to notice later details, later. I’ve looked at (for example) the Mona Lisa painting many times, but I only really noticed the color shades of the mountains and river as compared with her figure later on. Was that because I got a new monitor? Or was it due to the way attention shifts based on interest? I take it a similar type of ambiguity is part of listening and some may simply be impossible to get clear about.