DO CABLES REALLY MATTER?

Lifelong learning.

Glupson,
I was, as you can tell, pointing out the philosophical pitfalls accompanying the manner in which the OP went about gathering his knowledge of cables and the incongruity in the way he defends his argument.  He may very well be 100% correct.

Personally, I have not experimented with cables and as such have no opinion on the matter.  With that said, I have been thinking about it and researching lately. As a man of science, and the inherent quality that goes hand in hand with gathering quantifiable and empirical data, I do lean in that direction.  I will, however, be borrowing some cords from my local dealer and performing a test much as @dorkwad described. 

In the end, cables do matter, in all sorts of ways, but that has more to do with how people "know" things.  In looking at the many facets of this particular conundrum, it seems language, the senses and emotion are the main vehicles used in gathering and solidifying the said knowledge. I am happy to read some of the informative posts, engage in a little discourse and listen to good music without worrying too much about the cables.

chenman
Who is to say that confirmation bias is not at work either? Someone spends $500 on a cable because they believe it will enhance the sonic performance of their system is going to be psychologically pre-disposed to hearing it. There is no way around that. How much so is up for debate?

>>>>The arguments regarding confirmation bias, placebo effect and other psychological phenomena are the “weapons of mass destruction” of died-in-the-wool pseudo skeptics. No one is saying psychological issues never occur, but they don’t always occur. They can be controlled through careful testing by skilled listeners, I.e., audiophiles. It might not be easy. I never promised you a rose garden. 🌹Therefore, that particular argument is a logical fallacy. 😢 By the way, you could make your argument a whole lot stronger and more believable by other undecideds and newbies if you used $5000 instead of $500. 😬

For the purpose of distinguishing sounds, "skilled listener" is anyone who has had intact hearing for at least some time. Most have it from birth. Therefore, if a random group of people picked from the street cannot hear differences in sound, there is a decent chance that differences do not exist. More structured and controlled studies may be needed to support that observation with any acceptable certainty.