I see the issue with ABX blind testing

@benanders Your post is as slanted as it is ineffective in its stated upfront point that differences between objective/measurement and subjective/trust your ears types are avoidable. You give several examples of “experts” who hear no difference between cables and then contrast them with people with no stated “expert” credentials as being able to hear differences. That’s ridiculously slanted from the start and shows your inherent bias. The fact is that there are plenty of your so called “experts” out there who hear cable differences and plenty who do not hear differences. And likewise there are plenty of people you’d classify as “non experts” who can and cannot hear differences in cables. Further, there are tons of audiophiles out there who may not have your idea of credentials (recording engineer, musician, etc.) but who have extensive experience comparing various cables and can readily hear differences between them, and I’d submit that this experience gives them excellent credentials and are people I value — frequently more than so called “experts” — and who I’d like to hear from.

The first setting can be proficient with objectivity (using appropriate assessments). The second setting can tend to think it masters objectivity (despite perhaps avoiding appropriate assessments).

And there’s your bias laid bare Objective people use so called “appropriate” measurements whereas people who subjectively evaluate cables by listening don’t use what you call “appropriate” measurements and only “think” they hear what they hear, which is a not very veiled slap at their credibility. You have no idea what the “appropriate” measurements are or if they’re sufficient or comprehensive enough to reliably assess the overall sound of a cable, which they’re not BTW. You start your thread stating the rift between the objective and subjective crowds is avoidable, but it’s just not and your post does nothing to explain how or why it’s avoidable. The objective/measurements contingent is dug in as are the subjective/trust your own ears crowd and thus it will remain and is unavoidable. Then there are those of us who are open to both sides, but the reality is there’s precious little measurement data on individual cables so we’re largely left to use our ears in choosing specific cables, and that’s just reality like it or not. You’re clearly in the objective/measurement contingent but try to dance around and hide it — just own it and that’s fine, but these indirect backhanded slaps you give here and elsewhere to the subjective/trust your ears crowd are unsuccessfully cloaked in some foggy veil of being unbiased and show your true colors. Personally I don’t hop onto threads where people tout measurements as necessary to assess a cable’s sound (not that there are many of those threads) yet objectivists who need/rely on measurements or believe there’s no difference between cables constantly pollute threads where people are looking for and value others subjective opinions, and that’s just useless and frequently serves to just derail an otherwise interesting and useful thread. But that, unfortunately, is likely unavoidable and inevitable here. But back to the original point here, your post does nothing to address the unavoidable rift with regard to cables but does yet again expose your disdain for those of us who are able to use/trust our ears no matter how hard you try to hide it.

Professional musicians can easily identify differences between the sound of different violins but they’re not trained to identify differences between cables. It takes commitment, years of swapping components, cables and working on room acoustics to dial your system in and train your ears in the process to get all pieces of the puzzle to the level where differences between components and cables are easily discernible. Exposure to live music is priceless to build a reference (not talking about a Metallica concert here which is nearly impossible to replicate at home). Once it all comes together, add the recording quality to this equation and when all stars align you can, if you have the ears to do so, not only identify differences between cables, but also identify the differences between a Strad and a Guarneri, a Yamaha and a Steinway or a Kawai. It’s not impossible in a context of a properly set up system and room with trained and capable hearing listening to a high quality recording.
We can all argue this until we’re blue in the face. Facts are facts. Measurements is just a part of it all. It isn’t everything.

It pass my mind why people argue with no understanding of psychoacoustics where any kind of parameters and measurement ( musical, acoustical physiological, mechanical or electrical measures are subordinated to subjective guinea pigs voluntary listeners perceptive evaluation from all background) are correlated to subjective impressions collected by sampling them on a given population and studied statistically .

Cables; be it for objective measurement crowd with their obsession with mere electrical measurements or be it for the other crowd for which their own ears only tell the tale and only their ears; cables, must be investigated in psychoacoustics studies. Period.

Not on audio thread. If a cable matter for you fine, If the cable do not do the job,   dont go objecting with Maxwell or contradicting  by using it corrected by quantum theory. It is useless.Preposterous.Ridicule. I dont like cables thread. 😁😊😋

@audphile1 
How do you explain cables being //Not difficult to hear// but impossible to see on a frequency or amplitude graph? Are the cables making a difference in sound apart from frequency and amplitude? I honestly want to know what you think. 

Measuring something is both an art and a science.  It is called Metrology.  The methodology to measure something is just as important as the measurement equipment used.  Let‘s consider an interconnect cable.  What could we measure?  Well, we can measure length, weight, diameter.  We can measure tensile strength, flex strength, minimum bend radius, hardness of the wire, wire gage, etc.  The list can grow quite long.  Then we can measure it‘s electrical properties.  A cable has resistance, capacitance and inductance.  But those three properties are not fixed.  They can vary with temperature, frequency of the signal passing through and amplitude.  Let‘s say we measure this interconnect cable with an LCR meter.  We get a value for resistance, capacitance and inductance.  That measurement doesn‘t say anything about a signal passing through at 5000 Hz or 10,000 Hz or 20,000 Hz.  I remember cable makers back in the 1980s touting their audio cables could pass signals in the MHz range.  I wondered what use was that?  Well, now I understand that harmonics in cables up into the ultrasonic range is important to the sounds within our range of hearing.  So the properties of that cable will cause the phase angle to change between the input and output but the amount of change is dependent upon the frequency.  I‘ve never seen anyone map that in a cable measurement.  How about a waterfall plot of an interconnect showing impedance, and phase angle across a frequency range from 0-100,000 Hz? One cable vs another will have phase angle changes that are unique.  Non-linearities.  Non-linearities are the biggest headache in engineering.  Hard to predict the outcome without some extensive computer modeling.  And in the end, what measurements we see on a graph could be smearing over what is so easily heard.

Another example:  How mechanical vibrations can affect the sound of a cable.  How can that be?  I don‘t know, but I have heard the difference between an isolated cable vs one that is exposed to mechanical vibrations.  My guess is that movements of the wires inside the cable alter the capacitance and inductance- an additional complication.  These minute mechanical changes create colorations in the sound, smearing of images.  I bet cable manufacturers know or understand much of this but they aren‘t about to give away trade secrets to how or what they measure as well as how they manufacture.