Over the years, I have had a very good experience using the Lending Library at the Cable Company. I have found it critical to be able to compare several specific cables at the same time in my own system. For me, paying the shipping costs for the demo cables has been a worthwhile investment to make sure I buy a cable that I really like. (The 5% charges based on a cable's retail cost are a non-issue as long as you are committed to buying cables from the Cable Company at the end of your trial since those charges can be applied to any purchase from them at any time.) Also, the Frequent Flyer discount offered on many brands can reduce your retail cost by 11.5%.
My most recent purchase from the Cable Company was a power cable for my preamp, where I compared several cables from Cardas, Shunyata, and Snake River Audio. I have used mostly Cardas products as my analog signal cables and mostly Shunyata products for power cables, and I had hoped to use the Shunyata Theta power cable for my preamp to complement the Thetas used for my monoblock amps. Instead, after careful listening, the more expensive Shunyata Alpha-X sounded best in my preamp, offering more realistic tone and body than the other power cables. If I hadn't tried all these cables in my own system, I would never have known how great my system could sound.

