A New Believer

I fully agree with Tubegroover's first comment; always trust your ears.
Lak

Sound advice with this caveat: don't jump to immediate conclusions based upon "your ears."
There have been numerous times when I have inserted a piece of equipment, cable, tweak, or whatever and noticed an immediate difference, and usually I interpret this difference as better. After living with the change for a week or two I notice the difference is gone. After configuring my system to the pre-change condition I still hear no difference. What's going on here?
Another reason to let your ears guide you over time and not immediately is the no system change but different sounding phenomenon. Maybe this has never happened to everyone but it is quite frequent with me. Sometimes, last night was a good example, my system sounds fantastic while other times it sounds good or merely adequate. This occurs over the course of a month where zero changes have taken place. What's going on here?
I chalk it up to mood or physical condition. Am I the only one who experiences this?
We "hear" lots of differences so trust your ears. Just make sure your ears can consistently hear the differences before believing they are real.

The problem with cables is that they interact with what they are plugged into having capacitance, inductance, resistance, resonance, skin effect with varying dielectrics, (PVC, PE, Teflon,etc.)and more. Next, what signal can be measured that accounts for all the variables, and how will that be interpreted into some sort of scientific statement? I think it is just easier to ignore the price tag, listen and if it sounds better get the cables, whether at Walmart or the expensive places. Me, I only use TEflon cables or PE dielectric, with silver coated copper. Best sound for a budget, and if you shop well, it can be had for Walmart prices. Jallen

Timrhu I completely concur with what you said, absolutely! These tests must be done over a period of time and the results MUST be consistent. An initial response to a change in sound is usually positive as you state. What is harder to ignore is a consistent result over time with careful assurance that all else in the system remains the same. At that point, trust your ears.

Furthermore let me ask if the doubters believe there is a different in the sound characteristics of the same tube type by different manufacturers in a given audio device with all electrical parameters measuring the same? I'll bet most would say yes and some technically knowledgeble enough might be able to give reasons as to what is causing those differences. Wire is much more difficult in this respect outside the known electrical parameters of capacitance, inductance and shielding and how those factors might be contributing overall into the differences we hear or are there other factors as well as Jallen notes?