I will limit my comments to quality build cables, because cheap budget cables that I personally experienced max out very early in the process and don’t follow the same observations following
I disagree that any proper or definitive audio performance evaluation can be gleaned from any fast first plug -in /swap-in bake off . It won’t give you any proper gauge of ultimate performance.
It took 350+ hours for my high-end model NORDOST cables loom to break in substantially (90-odd %) of peak performance , and it was not any linear pathway to OZ.
Rather it was an ad-hoc series of incremental steps . There were numerous flat plateau periods, and then I would be pleasantly surprised with another "new" improvement that made it all sound better.
I disagree that any proper or definitive audio performance evaluation can be gleaned from any fast first plug -in /swap-in bake off . It won’t give you any proper gauge of ultimate performance.
It took 350+ hours for my high-end model NORDOST cables loom to break in substantially (90-odd %) of peak performance , and it was not any linear pathway to OZ.
Rather it was an ad-hoc series of incremental steps . There were numerous flat plateau periods, and then I would be pleasantly surprised with another "new" improvement that made it all sound better.