I used to think pricey interconnects were snake oil...

@asctim ”…My experience has been that I can get various very inexpensive interconnects that all sound indistinguishable.”

Yeah… of course, very inexpensive interconnects don’t make a difference or make a negative difference. No effort has been put into design, material choice, cost of materials… just like you can’t expect high quality sound out of a $19 CD Player. 
 

There is little point in reviewing inexpensive interconnects because they typically sound the same as the freebies you get with inexpensive components. Just to make sure I was calibrated to the market I have tried, Monster, Blue Jeans, Belkin… and a few others… completely worthless.

You need to audition some more than , Cardas, WireWorld, Transparent, and DHLabs. This will give you some perspective.

@asctim ...I don’t see much review of cheaper cables. You’d think there’d actually be a lot more variation between inexpensive cables, resulting in a lot of very interesting perceptions to report on,...

People don’t report much because there’s not a lot to talk about. I’ve tried a handful of various low cost cables over the years. I was able to confirm there were no giant killers. You essentially get what you pay for - unless you find great second-hand cables that someone is giving away at a very low price just to pass them along.

I used to use all WireWorld interconnects, but I found it difficult to fit them all into the spaghetti junction behind my equipment (six sources, phono stage, pre-amp, power amps, headphone amp). So I replaced them with skinny cheap interconnects. No difference to my ear. The only place where it does make a difference is on longer runs (pre-amp > monoblocks which sit behind the speakers) where cheapo interconnects pick up hum as they are not shielded.

I’m reminded of Tolstoy’s beginning of Anna Karenina " All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

We could rephrase this "All bad sounding interconnects are alike; each good sounding interconnect is good sounding in its own way."

Good sounding interconnects and unhappy families are both more interesting to write about.

"Snake Oil"