How much money for your next interconnect cable???

Pitiable me--I thought this was a genuine question rather than an invitation to come down front and testify at the altar. But seriously, and w/o rancor: John's point is just right. If you expect to hear a difference, you'll hear a difference; if you don't, you won't. Put tap water in a bottle and sell it for $3.00 a quart, and hydrophiles will wax poetic about its superiority. My question is not whether your 1000k cables sound better to you when you know they're there; my question is whether you and the cable congregation :) can distinguish, in a BLIND test, between $20 cables and $2000 cables. If you can't, then you're paying $1980 for the privelege of being fooled, and that's your perogative. Honestly, I'm not in the least opposed to paying for even slight increases in sound quality; nor am I opposed to aesthetic considerations: well-made cables, like well-made amps, speakers, and the like, are things of beauty, and can enhance one's experience in the way that a freshly washed car seems to drive better. But if I found that those with even supersensitive ears and high expectations couldn't, in a blind test, distinguish between high-end and low-end cables, I'd get the least expensive well-made cables I could find. Would anyone do otherwise?
Cheers,
Stewie

My point is that components, including cables, do indeed sound different. To me it's a given. Everyone is free to believe what they want to believe but why even engage in the conversation if one believes everything sounds the same? Now whether those differences sound "better" is pretty much subjective. And whether that difference is worth mega-bucks is a whole other aspect of the discussion.
The "blind" test is touted by those who believe that objectivity is possible in all this craziness. I don't want to open that can of worms, AGAIN. I believe that there is a place for objectivity but at the end of the day most audio decisions are based on subjective opinion; you like the way something sounds or you don't.
Having said all that, I agree with you Stewie that a certain amount of scepticism is a good thing especially when it comes to all the hype thrown around by manufacturers. I guess the old adage; "trust your ears" is the way to go.

Thanks for your very reasonable post, Rja; I might just make a couple of points, if I might, and then sign off. First, I don't doubt for a moment that components sound different. My new VR4HSE (bought on Audiogon!) sound different from my Kef Reference 3s. The Mullard 4004s sound diffent from the GE 5751s, though that difference is less pronounced. Some may prefer the Kefs to the VRs, and some may prefer the Mullards to the GEs. One would have to be nuts to think that there is an objective opinion about which one is better. It would be like assuming that there's an objective fact of the matter about which color is "best." But the blind test is looking for something very different, and it leaves value judgments aside. The blind test is testing for one thing and one thing only: whether someone can distinguish b/t, in our hypothetical case, 2000k cables and $20 cables. If you can't distinguish the cables in a blind test, then your preference for one set of cables doesn't depend on sound. Imagine for example, that someone could not only distinguish b/t the $20 and $2000 cables, but preferred the way the $20 cables sounded. The test doesn't say: no, it's objectively true that the $2000 cables sound better, so you're nuts. It only says: you can hear a difference between the two. So, if the cable congregation can't distinguish, in a blind test, between high-end and low-end cables, it is objectively true that their preference for the high-ends is independent of sound.

This is not, by the way, a troll. I'd considered more expensive cables about a month ago, but couldn't find a single blind test that showed expensive cables making a detectable difference. If someone could point to such a test, I'd love to see it.

Stewie,
Can I assume that you've found blind tests for everything you've purchased or does this only apply to cables?

That's a fair question, RJA. But you can probably guess that I don't look for blind tests for everything, largely b/c, and I think you'll agree w me here, the differences b/t, say, a $200 set of grannygrade speakers from Walmart and 14k set of Watt Puppies are obvious and palpable. Differences b/t amps and cd players are less obvious, though both differ quite a lot in build quality, I think you'll agree, even if they can sound the same. So before I plunked down 5k or even 2k for a cd player, I might very well want to know whether I could distinguish its sound from, say, a well made if lower priced Jolida or Rega, or for that matter, whether anyone could distinguish b/t them.
But cables are especially suspect for the same reason that bottled water is suspect: 1)the claims made for both seem, on their face, fatuous, and 2)the potential for profit is extraordinary. So, the burden of proof ought to be on the manufacturers. If you say your water is purer, let the FDA check; if you say your water tastes different from tap water (we'll leave aside whether it tastes better), let's do a double blind test to see if people--believers and sceptics-- can distinguish a $12 bottle of water from a $3 bottle.

What I find curious about all of this is fact that Our Church of Good Cable :) could settle the matter once and for all with a double blind test. And if I were a manufacturer who actually believed that my cryogenically treated, organically mined cables that I sold for 2k a pair were sonically distinguishable (notice I didn't say "better," which is subjective) from a $30 pair, I'd sponsor such a test and publish the results. But from what I've been able to glean from the web, the double blind tests that do exist on power cords (not interconnects, I know) show that no such sonic distinction exists, much to the surprise of those who thought they were hearing a difference. You may know of the power cord test: http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volume_11_4/feature-article-blind-test-power-cords-12-2004.html

Whatever you may think of his wine advice, even Robert Parker's harshest critics recognize his ability to _distinguish_ between hundreds and perhaps thousands of wines. And even 2nd-tier critics can distinguish between hundreds of bottles. But I've been unable to find a single test showing anyone capable of distinguishing in a double blind test a single low-end cable from a single high-end cable. Can anyone point me to such a test? Since so much skepticism exists, one would think that such a test would have been run.