I understand you. You employ the term, “snake oil” often and claim cheap cables are sufficient. Clearly, you are a denier. You believe that if you can’t hear something then it doesn’t exist- an even better thrill for you is when measurements are unable to pick up differences. Your assumption is that if someone can hear something you can’t then they must be delusional. The way you like to slip in insults and digs, making you feel clever and pithy suggests that you cannot or will not buy high end gear and so it bothers you that others do. How many “delusional” people buying expensive cables would it take for you to believe that they might actually be hearing something? How about one. If one person can hear a difference then why can’t you believe them?
Hifi isn’t about how much money you can spend. Hifi is about great sound reproduction. Sure, it can get expensive real fast. For many years I was a DYI’er. I couldn’t afford the super high end gear. Like I said before, the room is one of the most critical components. I had a listening room that I designed and built myself in 1994. But then I moved out of that house in 1996. That was the best my system sounded until a couple of years ago. And that system back then was just some planar speakers, an old heavily modified ARC SP-6b preamp, a couple of different SS amps and Sota Turntable. I used some KimberCable and Monster Cable back then. The system rocked. My system today is on another level entirely. It took much more than money. I have spent many hours going through different cables, ethernet configurations and building the room to achieve the sound I have today. That includes dedicated power lines (something I have had in place in every house since 1989). I spent months researching streaming and trying different gear that didn’t work out so well- cheap gear actually, until I found the right combination of streamer, power supply and ethernet switch to get streaming to sound as good as CD. See, I don’t have to shop for CDs now. I have millions of songs at my fingertips with Qobuz and it sounds amazing.