From recent comments here it looks like I am not the only one here experimenting with cables of all sorts. Like may high-end devices I find the Musetec to be very sensitive to cables: power, USB & analog. I noted that in my particular set-up silver USB cables that had been very effective with other components seemed to give a surrealistic (and sometimes very pleasant) sound to many recordings used with the Musetec. Similarly recently with silver XLRs. That's uniquely what I hear in my own system and I am persuaded that there is no cable that can be optimal in every quality system. I know some will think otherwise.
In my last post I said I had "calibrated" my ears by going to a concert given by a small orchestra in an appropriately small performance space. I had missed concert going during the Covid period. When I go to a concert like this I can't help comparing it to listening at home. Calibrating one's ears is not a bad way to put it. When The Absolute Sound was run by Harry Pearson and was worth reading, each of his reviewers was required to attend concerts of unamplified music on a regular basis, to "calibrate" their ears.
The possibility of making a component sound better-than-real reminded me of how friends in the past had sometimes remarked that classical concerts sounded dull compared to their stereo systems. Of course anyone can make their system sound any way they wish. Unfortunately though, I don't think any reviewers these days, print or video, are listening for accuracy to the real thing, rather than simply expressing personal likes and dislikes in audiophile jargon.