Why Do Cables Matter?

Boutique cables are important because they give audiophiles a way to churn costly items without alerting the spouse. Wires? What could THEY cost?

@raysmtb1  That’s the way it is. The end of better is the real myth.

What's the point in weighing in on this debate? But I will anyway.

Do cables matter? One can—as this among so many other threads, websites, and books abundantly show!—make cogent "arguments" on both sides. No one will ever settle the matter by argument.

As for settling the matter by listening...well, there's good reason to be skeptical of any confidence in this, too. In order to conduct a fair listening comparison, so many things have to be the case: very precise volume matching, blind listening, A/B/X tests repeated at least ten times, etc. etc. Furthermore, and perhaps more to the point with cables: there's plenty of empirical evidence that our memories for small details in sound last only a few seconds. To change from one set of cables running from the same amp to the same speakers quickly enough is impossible; you'd have to have two identical sets of speakers and source in exactly the same acoustic space. Finally, even if cables do matter (and I'm willing to accept on faith that they do, to some small degree), other parameters matter much more—the most important of these being the acoustics of your listening room. Because one can't change one's listening room as easily as one can change a component, or cables, folks tend to disregard the importance of the listening room, or at most try to tweak it with bass traps, diffusers, absorbing panels. But—assuming the same recording being played (the quality of the original recording is probably the single most important parameter)—the listening room is going to make a vastly bigger difference than cables will. 

Somehow, the witticism attributed to Niels Bohr seems appropriate here. Noticing a horseshoe over his door, a friend expressed astonishment at Bohr's superstition. He replied: "I understand it works whether you believe in it or not."

While everything makes a difference, does that mean better? As pointed out by many here, science does suggest that Material quality and shielding makes for a better cable. It may cost hundreds of dollars to produce a cable with the properties desired to produce audiophile grade sound. What makes me scratch my head in wonder is seeing $7k power or $30k speaker wires. I suppose enough market exists among the Less than 1% crowd to keep some of these in business.

Then again, nothing new under the sun. Some of the claims thrown around remind me of the early 70's first fuel shortage. Reading about all the miracle fuel saving gadgets coming on market would lead one to think that you may need to tow a tanker to collect all the extra fuel you would be making.

At the end of the day, only so many veils can be lifted before it becomes a gadget obsession instead of a music hobby.

Why Do Cables Matter?

They don't and it isn't objectively provable that they do. The people that say "I know what I hear" or similar, are no different than people who believe a random set of stars in the sky has something to do with what happens in their lives.