Why Do Cables Matter?

It was NEVER my intent to throw a grenade in. And I do visit Audiogon occasionally ... mainly looking to buy. I normally do NOT go to the forums. And I am not laughing.

I read equipment reviews - as I'm sure most on here do - and the reviews usually have photos that show the "innards" of the equipment - and from the photos, the wiring inside amps and speakers looks pretty ordinary and routine [certainly nothing special]. 

If you have cheap or routine wiring coming off, say a transistor collector to an amplifier binding post INSIDE THE AMPLIFIER, and if this [because it is cheap wire] degrades or chokes the signal, kills any soundstage or imaging or clarity or whatever, and THEN you add very "good wiring" from the exterior amp binding post to the speaker binding post, how can the "good wiring" improve desirable characteristics at that point BECAUSE the cheap wiring INSIDE THE AMPLIFIER has already "damaged or degraded" the signal, and I don't understand or see how "good wiring" from that point forward can "recover or fix" the signal - a signal that has already been compromised by the use of cheap wiring. I don't believe "good wiring" can fix or improve any signal. But instead, it may make readily apparent the shortcomings of a poor signal. That was the point I was trying to make.

I agree in all likelihood #10 speaker wire will sound better than #18 speaker wire - for a host of demonstrable engineering explanations. But I don't think ANY speaker wire can fix or improve a signal that been compromised by the use of inferior wire upstream of the signal. And from the equipment review photos I look at, MOST of this wiring inside equipment seems to be pretty routine.

Welcome back. I get it now, "Why Do Cables Matter?" was a rhetorical question.

@kinarow1

Problem is you haven’t ‘learned’ to listen.., Lol. Forget that common sense and science S..T, you’ll feel much better ‘fact-less’ and broke.
Cheers

In further follow up to the robbydouglas2 post, I also love these kinds of declamatory statements like: "My system sounds amazing. Most people that have listened to it have never heard anything better." Statements like this are utterly pointless since we don't know what the listeners to this purportedly amazing system have also listened to by comparison. It could be sound down a string and a tin can for all we know. But if it was, I'm sure it was nicely coloured string.:))

+1 for @snilf  for pointing out that "just listen" is, when stated so simplistically, a quixotic imperative. I would point out that some people claim that only listening for longer periods is effective at discovering subtle differences. One must take notes during those longer periods of listening. The question of whether fast-switching or longer-listening is more effective at discovering enduring qualitative differences is a very interesting one to me.

+1 @audphile1  for noting the reasons people can't hear a difference with cables. And for explaining what needs to be done to make it *possible* to eventually (possibly) hear a difference.