Why Do Cables Matter?

@yoyoyaya thanks for your response. 
#1 You can't add information to a recording.

#2 Recording studios don't use very expensive interconnects and speaker cable.

#3 Since #1 and #2 are true it is illogical to use cables that are more expensive than the recording studio is using. 

Please don't be silly and point to an exception in which a studio uses very expensive cables i'm speaking in general terms with nearly 40 years of recording experience at the highest levels. You didn't think statement 1 and 2 went together, they do because of the agreed upon idea that there is entropy in information you can't do better than the original. Try arguing that cables or any piece of hyper expensive playback equipment can add information / fidelity to the original. It's going to be tough without AI.

You are missing the point that the average stereo system extracts just a fraction of the information from the recording.  More resolving systems extract more information.  I hear footfalls, whispers, movements in recordings.  It was very distracting at first but I have learned to tune that out.  Still, I’m not crazy about listening to my system in the dark.  It often feels like people are moving around in the room.

@donavabdear. At the risk of flogging a dead horse, the point is that one is aiming to retrieve the information which is already there and not to add information which is not present in the recording.

Thanks for re-presenting your propositions. There is no connection of any kind between statement numbers one and two. They are just two different statements and so no conclusion can be drawn from them.

Your concluding "try arguing" statement is a prime example of a straw man distraction fallacy.

@yoyoyaya earnest question for you.

You said,

the point is that one is aiming to retrieve the information which is already there and not to add information which is not present in the recording.

Original recordings vary a lot (as you know). When an original recording was something made for car radios or some other mass listening application, they sometimes exhibit qualities which, on a good stereo, sound bad. When audiophiles seeks ways of dealing with that -- say with a tube DAC or EQ or certain cables, etc. -- are they trying to remove information in the original recording in order to make it sound better?

I really don’t know the answer to this, so I would appreciate anyone with experience explaining what is happening to the "information" in the original recording when we try to make it sound better.

Also, consider this analogy: when we take raw steak and cook it and add garlic salt, are we obscuring or reducing the original flavor information in the meat?

You see the analogy I’m trying to make, but perhaps it is not a good analogy? Feel free to attack it!

It’s all about waves. Sound waves are locked into electromagnetic waves in recording studios. At home, that same electromagnetic waves are converted back into sound waves by our electronics and speakers. The objective of our home system is to replicate that recorded electromagnetic waves. But since we’re not in a perfect world, there is no way that electromagnetic waves can exactly be reproduced. We’re dealing with degree of degradation to the original waves by the home equipment. The better the equipment, the closer we get to the original waves. So, everything in the chain matters. Electromagnetic waves are created by electrons. Cable manufacturers strive to get the electrons vibrating to perfection in order to re-create that recorded electromagnetic waves. But there is no such thing as a perfectly pure material or a perfectly shielded cable so the exact reproduction is not going to happen. We have cable makers going for OCC, high purity materials, cryro and sophisticated construction in their attempt to get as close as possible to reproducing the original signals. The closer they get the more expensive the cables becomes. At the end of the day, it’s all about you get what you pay for.