Power Cable with a "soft" top end

threre is a dischotomy here. either a cable is soft or it isn't. if the term is to be a valid descriptor it must be consistent. thus, if i audition a cable in my stereo system and say it has the characteristic of being soft and you attempt to corroborate my findings, by replicating what i did in my system and you come to a different conclusion, the term is invalid. many audiophile terms are invalid unless there is a definition and the application of the definition is consistent.

when eliciting opinions about the sound of a compoent, without objective confirmation, the results can be subject to disagreement.

thus, there are two problems, namely differences in stereo systems and differences in perception. such a state renders many "audiophile" terms invalid, in the psychometric sense.

a term like "bright", reasonable definable and subject to measurement is an example of a useful term. one must not confuse the sound of a component from the sound of a stereo system. it is wise to consider the affect of a component upon the sound of a stereo system, rather than claiming knowledge of the sound of a component, which is impossible to attain.

thus, one can say that stereo system a sounds less focused than stereo system b, and yet cannot say that a particular line cord is unfocused.

threre is a dischotomy here. either a cable is soft or it isn't.

But there are differences of softness as such differences can be detected by higher resolving systems.

Let's look at the color red as defined by the RGB triplet (255, 0 0). This is as RED as red gets. But (235, 0, 0) looks mighty red on a display as well. If we each only lived with one of these, but not the same, we would debate forever here that these were both red. And yet only one can "truly" be red. But compared to (0, 255, 0), they are both red. Only when compared directly side by side, would we observe their difference....and end our debate.

Brightness is no more useful a term as soft. In the RGB context, what is bright? ... (255, 255, 255)? ... (250, 250, 250)? ... (240, 240, 240) ? They might all be bright and yet, in absolute terms, only one at most can be bright. And how do I know which one of these you are experiencing in your reported evaluation? I need your reference against my reference, with all other system parameters equal, to determine the relevance of your observation.

thus, if i audition a cable in my stereo system and say it has the characteristic of being soft ....

Your statement would be solely based on a difference to the sound with the cable previously used in that link.

by replicating what i did in my system and you come to a different conclusion,...

If we are talking in absolute terms, the only way I can come to any conclusion in a case like this, whether my conclusion was the same as yours or not, would be to hear the effect in your system the same time you did. But if you add detail in your report as to the product you used before, then I have a fair shot at hearing the relative differences as reported by you. Our systems' capabilities would likely show differences in magnitude, but these would likely be in the same "direction".

thus, one can say that stereo system a sounds less focused than stereo system b, and yet cannot say that a particular line cord is unfocused.

Agreed. My previous comments that a cable is focused or unfocused implied its affect on the system's resultant sound. We don't hear power cables. We hear their affects in a system that differ to other power cables in that same system.

When was the last time you heard a system unfamiliar to you ... and it had a characteristic that annoyed you. Knowing nothing about the products in that system, could you point to a power cable or tonearm and say that one product was the cause of the fault?

let's take a term like loud. it can be both qualitative and quantitative in nature.

suppose i define loud as 85 db of sound pressure. thus unless there is 85 db of sound pressure the word loud would not applicable. in addition there is the quantitative louder, obviously 90 db is louder than 85 db.

the word "soft", not in the sp sense, but in the focus/defocused connotation is also quantitative and qualitative. in this case it is difficult to measure focus and almost impossible to define soft in quantitative terms.
the word "soft" is highly subjective, ambiguous and amorphous.

if you and i audition the same stereo system, our perceptions will differ. thus many audiophile terms which accrue from listening experiences are not necessarily useful to a third person who does not share an experience.

in the case of line cords, if i replace line cord a with line cord b, i might describe the effect as softening the sound or i may say that my stereo system sounds "soft", in the qualitative sense. if you share my experience, you may disagree with my perceptions. you may say my stereo system does not sound "soft" and you might also say that the affect of introducing line cord b did not produce a softening affect.

this hypothetical situation raises the question i indicated, namely the validity of audiophile terms.

their usage is often accompanied by inconsistencies within and between listener experiences.