Tbg wrote > "I certainly would not go so far as to say cables cannot elevate the sound to a higher level of excellence. Does this not imply a zero improvement?"
Perhaps just an issue of semantics, but a cable is not an active component. It cannot "add" anything to a signal; there is no amplification or gain and it shouldn't be shaping the frequency response or other signal characteristics.
What a cable can do is take things away; it can fail to accurately transmit the signal. It can allow EMI or RF interference to distort the signal. It can change the frequency response. It can fail to transmit the full signal strength. But it cannot make the signal "better" than when it left the source component (unless you count on the cable's deficiency to be an inverse match to a defect elsewhere in a system.)
Of course, that is an interesting approach, build a system based on combining defects and substandard performance. Not the approach one would typically think to take, but there is room for everyone in this hobby. ;-)