a great take on big$ cables

Someone should make a little $100 box that implements a tunable band-pass filter to put in the interconnect lines. I bet that you could make such a box with some knobs that would let you make your interconnect sound like "silver" or "copper" or "quantum equalized equipotential polarized dialectric" cables. Zip cord plus a box like this would be as good as any $15000 cable.

That's the Carver "theory" applied to cables... And it is not true. A "box" with passive or active components does not behave the same as a transmission line in regard to RF handling or even in regard to the full audio spectrum. You are making a big simplification of what should be analyzed by Maxwell equations and perhaps simplified to distributed network. The "box" theory says that it all can be simplified into an "ideal" transmission line plus ideal basic components. That's known in engineering as the first-order approximation. It's good for predicting basic directions, not for details.
BTW, you can simplify the concept even further by putting an equalizer in the chain. If all these transfer functions are linear then you can "bundle" them together!
Some online magazine measured and published Nordost Valhalla capacitance curve. No passive components that I can think about can do that...
Equalizers do some good in some systems but they are not "sonically-free", whether active or passive. If you bother to reach the highest levels of audio reproduction then you will take the extreme pain to match the most basic components and avoid additions to the signal chain.

On the other hand, I plan to audition Transparent cables on the advice of a friend. Through their extensive R&D, they may have found ways to make my system better, and that's worth listening to.

Ah, and then your emotions take over... It won't make a difference, but heck let's have a listen... :-)
Be strong and resist the urge, Mate... :-)
Or, listen and think whether this set of cables seems to do a better job conveying the music compared to what you have. I'm not saying the particular one does or doesn't, but only listening in your own system can tell you the whole story.
Of course if you know the "formula" of this cable or the circuit for that amplifier - you can build them yourself. The question is how much is it worth to you... To some people an interconnect is worth $50 max and even when they hear a better set they won't spend the money. To other people money is no object. Most of us fall somewhere in between... See - we were just reduced to an "average"... :-)
But somtimes, just sometimes, the emotions take over. Like my friend that needed to rebuild his garage and one day I go to visit and he has a $40K dCS digital front-end - and no garage... The mysteries of the mind... :-(

Pabelson:

Just because you don't know the science doesn't mean the science doesn't exist

Then we finally agree! You and I don't know why it sounds different. That doesn't mean it sounds the same, only that we haven't reached that level of analysis or technology. I couldn't agree more!!!

science and engineering is still a little behind when it comes to measurement...

any cable or piece of gear will pass signal... the question is it letting the "emotion" of the performance through (pretty "delicate" signal that cant be measured by NO INSTRUMENT !!!!!. when you find one, please let me know..)

some people are tone deaf and in some audiophile circles some are tone/emotional deaf..(to find out, go buy a couple favorite albums and go listen to it on a Linn turntable in a really nice high end system... if you are not touched by what you hear(assuming the system is correctly set up... then you might be "emtionally tone deaf"..

a lot depends on what a listener is "listening for"..... julian hirsch (aka stero review -a otl futterman amp sounds like a pioneer reciever) was case in point...

We all know its in our mind. Cheap wire ... expensive wire, copper ... silver, tube ... SS, good hearing ... poor hearing. The fun is in the journey and the discovery process. I could end my year-old sojourn into this audio hobby right now if I wanted to. My modest system sounds damn good, but I like trying new components, including the wire family. Hell, most of us could save a lot of $$$ by getting hypnotized into believing our current audio system sounds perfect. It all comes back to our mental perceptions and my mind tells me to keep trying cables, amps, speakers, tweaks, etc., because ITS FUN!!!. My only fear is that my wife will insist on a couch session before I can get my amps cryo'd. So keep up the debates cause their a lot of fun too.

I should make a disclosure: I will shortly be introducing a new cable that smooths out the quantum time smearing effect. This effect happens because there are many parallel universes where our multiple selves are listing to music at the same time, producing an interdimensional resonance in a previously unknown tiny organ in our brains. If that resonance is disturbed, it can make us feel that something is wrong. Due to quantum time effects, some of those universes get out of sync by a few tiny time quantum steps, causes smearing of the inter-dimensional image and disturbing the resonance. This is why so many people are alternately happy and unhappy when listing to their systems. My cables use a proprietary quark-based dithering technique to smooth out this quantum staircasing and restore the resonance, bringing back the feeling that everything is fine.

The resonance can also be enhanced with my secret nutrient formula based on a 6000-year-old Assyrian recipe that uses 100% natural ingredients. Just down a few bottles of this while you are listening to my cables, and I guarantee you will feel good about your music. You won't even have to turn on your system to feel the effect. In fact, all you need are the cables and the nutrient to have a pleasant evening.