Cable advice

I don’t agree that cables all need to be the same. To me, it’s all about synergy no matter where that comes from. For me, I just happened to gravitate toward Acoustic Zen, and every time I added a better AZ cable things just got better and so I just ended up with a full loom of AZ cables. It just happened that way for me, but I’m all open and if I hear another cable that sounds better to me than AZ I’m all in. But, as it stands and how it evolved for me, I’m all in with AZ. If Cardas, AudioQuest, etc. works for you I say go for it!

I also have at least 4 different brands and different quality, although all at least mid-level (at least in my opinion they are mid-level!) The only time I’ve heard they should be the same is from a dealer wanting me to spend thousands to upgrade to one brand and all at a very high level, which of course he sold. I didn’t go for it. 
 

Using Audioquest as an example, they are very clear that listening is a significant part of their product development, so it seems that if I like the sound characteristics of one of their cables, I'm likely to also appreciate their other products since they are likely all listened to by the same people.

The potential options for cable brands is essentially infinite, so staying with a single brand does limit the options if you don't have deep enough pockets to trade in everything multiple times.

One downside to sticking with a single brand is that sometimes a company is a one trick pony where it doesn't seem logical that the same basic design would be optimal for power cords, interconnects, and speaker cables since they do different things electrically.

I have Waudio and Pangea power cords, Morrow Audio interconnects, and Blue Jeans Cable speakers cables.

All of the manufacturers would say that you should have a matched set of their cables.  Once a seller sells you a set of cables, saying that having a matched set will sound even better, thus opening up many more sales.  So you can see where this advice comes from.

I don't even consider is.  

Of course I only have one cable of each type:  one ethernet cable, one usb cable, one set of interconnects to my amp, one set of speaker cables.  All are a differt signal in a different application. So even if they were the same brand, they would all be different.

Jerry

The manufacturers have incentive to suggest that all cables be the same.  Since each set has a different purpose and often different impedances in play, you could be very likely get best sound with different cables.