Still, I was fully prepared to chalk some of that up to expectation bias.
I have come to a point where I believe my ears. I hear what I hear.
Others can tell me it is the placebo effect, or expectation bias, or that without a blind A/B test I am not able to hear what I hear -- or that because I can't hear above 15 kHz, that that somehow invalidates the frequencies that I do hear, etc.
When I demo a cable, or a box, or a song / re-master, etc, I clear my mind of all of the noise from the "specs are everything" crowd, and "all properly built cables sound the same" crowd.
Your story was entertaining, and you probably all had some fun with the activity.
But prior to that A/B testing with your family, you knew what you heard. It was unmistakable. Let cable deniers tell you differently, and let their propaganda go in one ear and out the other.
Cables matter. Believe your ears, no matter what anyone tells you.
By the way, approximately 15 years ago, my local high-end store loaned me a box of interconnects, from 6 or 7 different manufacturers. At the time, I was using interconnects from Quicksilver Audio.
I spent half the day demoing all of the loaned interconnects. A few sounded so close to each other, I doubt that I would be able to tell them apart. One or two sounded worse than my Quicksilver Audio cables.
But one set of cables stood out. They were unmistakably better. They were Audioquest Sky interconnects. I needed no blind testing, or anyone else to confirm what I heard.
Trust your ears.