Why Do Cables Matter?

The argument about cables is purely objective from what I can tell. Nobody is arguing against anybody’s subjective experience. We take it for granted. What’s being argued is the technical explanation for that subjective experience. For some reason the idea that any power of suggestion is involved in the experience is flatly ruled out, while at the same time blind testing is also flatly ruled out. So, an art of cable apologetics has developed, and that seems strange. Why insist against the power of suggestion? How does one know that is not happening, and why does one care? If it works for you, and you’re a subjectivist, why does it matter how it works? What’s wrong with power of suggestion as an explanation? This is meant as an honest question, not some kind of taunt.

 tried with long cable runs, like maybe 100 feet

my issue with that is I can't hear much from a 100 feet. The street noise really messes with the sound of the music at that distance.

Nobody is arguing against anybody’s subjective experience.

They are there, you just have to go a little further back in the discussion to find their comments. The tenacity of those repeatedly interjecting the same limiting beliefs and even ridicule across many, many discussions is what brings up their refutation.

I'm trying not to get drawn into this discussion but I can't help myself.  So as someone who has been fortunate to buy some higher quality gear I will share some of my experience.  I are an engineer not a professional stereo reviewer but I will try to communicate the contributions I have heard from the various cables.

Power Cords:  1st preamps and amps- as I moved up the line of power cords the two main things I heard were blacker background.  It's not about sticking my ear to a tweeter and listening for noise.  It is something else.  In a dead quiet room the first thing I noticed with a better power cord was just quiet.  The music comes out of nowhere without warning.  The second thing is the sound.  Bass is firmer and edges on the highs are smoother.  It took some pretty expensive power cords to experience this level of change.  Mid grade power cords not so much.  When I upgraded the power cord on my DAC I immediately noticed the grain in the highs was gone.  And I am using a tubed DAC.  I'd say the DAC was impacted the most with a better power cord.  Some songs that were bright sounding to me, causing me to turn the volume down were now much more pleasant sounding.  

Speaker Cables- I'm trying to remember what they did for my system.  I think it was mostly better clarity and bigger soundstage.  Bass got tighter too, but I will get to this in a minute- the interconnects affected the bass too.  Power cords and speaker cables are enough to start inducing goose bumps.

Interconnects:  I am using all XLRs so I cannot speak to single ended designs.  When I upgraded my cable from preamp to amps the bass changed completely.  I thought it was great before.  Suddenly, the clarity was like crystal.  What I thought was a kind of fuzz in some low bass guitar notes tightened up so that now I can hear the strings.  It was a startling change.

Networking:  This is a technology that is far from mature and so many people have experienced varying results with a nearly infinite combination of components.  In my case, as I said earlier, the network cables impact the sound.  I did not buy super expensive ethernet cables (well, I have an AQ ethernet cable going into the music server) but I got some $35 Pangea ethernet cables to go from modem to router and router to network switch.  These cables have silver plated Cardas wire in them.  They improve the sound of bass when streaming music and added clarity.  I probably could not tell the difference in sound between CD and streaming now.  They are very close.  

Cables are the icing on the cake.  So you could eat the cake without icing but it is not nearly as good.  Probably the most frustrating part about cables is the almost infinite choices and the inability to try more than just a handful.  After all, it takes hundreds of hours for some cables to settle in.  In fact, the new power cords on my amps got so bad sounding in the 50 hour range I could not listen to the stereo at all.  I just had to let it play low and walk away for a day or two.

Mogami is a smart choice for quality and value.   I'd keep those and change anything else if needed.