A fresh approach to cable analysis

Minimal incentive to pay for expensive cables to dissect then becoming worthless

The above line says it all about how ridiculous is this "fresh idea".

IMO interconnects have ZERO affect on sound quality!

Haven't you already told everyone here this at least one hundred times?

99% of audiophiles fall for the advertising hype

I am not one of those 99%.  Whether I seek a new audio cable, cordless drill or the latest flavor of M&M's, I let the product speak for itself.  If the outcome does not speak for itself, it is dismissed......IMMEDIATELY; I don't let manufacturer marketing influence the  purchase.

In the old days everybody used used Radio Shack gray  Switchcraft cables and nobody complained.

Did they?  And nobody complained about waiting for the ice man, having to hang their clothes outside, dealing with no A/C every weekend when visiting grandma out in the desert every weekend.  Do you want to return to those days?  I certainly do not, anymore than I want to return to my radio shack cables from 1962.

Just a comment on the veracity of the much vaunted double blind tests. It takes at least two days for any cable to settle after I swap it into my system. I am not talking about break in, I am talking just swapping cables. This is pretty consistent in my experience. Performing a/b switching is pretty pointless, cable comparisons happen over days and weeks, not minutes or hours. Double blind tests fail by design.

My experience does not match this at all.  I read all the hype about a new power cable and finally decided to give a pair a try in my system.  Into Soundlab A1 speakers, I could swap power cables instantly without the need to power down/up anything.  The difference was immediate and huge between either the Dream State Dream Catcher or CH Acoustic X20 power cords I use vs. this new arrival power cord pair.  Dynamic contrasts and harmonic structures were severely reduced with the arrival.  This was true throughout my system, but the test at the speakers was the easiest to implement.

I honored the manufacturer's request to leave his cables in for 48 hours, listened two nights 3-4 hours each.  Then dropped the CHA X20 pair back into the speakers.  It was GAME OVER!  The dynamics, harmonics, low resolution all returned instantly.  The CHA cables had been removed, shuffled around the room, and then re-inserted......and needed no re-settling time or burn-in to show their superiority.  And no, it's not synergy.  Oh and this was with 600 hours total burn-in of the arrival by that last week.  If a cable is severely subtractive, no amount of burn-in or settling is going to do anything.

These latest responses confirm one thing clearly: people who believe in cables, believe in cables. Full stop. And honestly, that belief is self-reinforcing — it manifests as a genuinely heightened listening experience and real enjoyment. I’m not here to take that away from anyone. Enjoy every minute of it.
But please don’t conflate a subjective experience with scientific objectivity. They are not the same thing, and insisting otherwise doesn’t make it so. And while we’re at it — let’s drop the “my system is so revealing I can hear everything” angle. That’s not an argument, it’s a credential flex. For what it’s worth, I’m not listening on a clock radio either.

Into Soundlab A1 speakers, I could swap power cables instantly without the need to power down/up anything. 
 

Impressive!
 

but seriously, it appears that for some people at least they can switch a component or even a whole loom of cables and immediately know exactly how the system has changed upon listening. I for one have no criticism of you at all. You are set. You know what you want and you’ve got it. I, on the other hand, am one of the thousands out there find that of all the changes you can make to an audio system changing cables produces some of the smallest and most hard to define changes. I would like to have the best cables, and I would also like to be able to shop intelligently for them. I find that my mind can play tricks on me in this area. For example, a friend of mine once lent me a pair of old MIT cables, which I put in the system and loved immediately. Love them so much I went on eBay and bought my own set. Yet with the passage of time and the tweaking of equipment, I pulled out the old MIT‘s and put some canare star quad cable in, these were speaker cables I’m talking about. to my surprise and dismay I couldn’t hear a difference anymore. That was pretty typical of much of my experience with cables, so maybe I am cable deaf. However, fortunately, I can hear the difference between all six of my amplifiers, and all six of my pairs of speakers.

so does that make me some kind of oddball audiophile? I plead innocent and  in my defense I would like to call to the stand William Low, the founder of audioquest to give testimony in the form of his recent interview on “the occasional podcast“, which you can find a link to on this thread https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/william-low-interview

@bruce19 ….so maybe I am cable deaf…..so does that make me some kind of oddball audiophile? 

Actually, your experience is common. Cables are a poor substitute for other components, but as part of the audio chain they usually matter depending on:

• transparency of audio chain
• individual hearing ability 
• room conditions 
• ambient noise

Differences usually might be none-slight, and more rarely significantly positive. So spend very judiciously on cables and ignore the marketing hype.

I generally believe the minimum is to upgrade stock cabling to at least a reputable audio cable.  Beyond that spend carefully.

Measurement note- I guessing most of us do not know how to measure the effects of dielectric coverings. Air-only(no-dielectric) is latest cable wisdom for the idea insulator, as such many modern designs try to minimize contact (increase air gaps). It’s not just the dielectric itself, but how to measure the effectiveness including engineered air gaps.

But please don’t conflate a subjective experience with scientific objectivity.

What exactly is scientific objectivity?  ..... taking measurements and looking for repeatability?  If I go into a music store and hit a key on upright pianos, Kimball, Kawaii, Yamaha, and then proceed to the back room with a Steinway concert grand, do I need a rack of electrical test equipment driven by a room of specifically placed microphones, to prove to me that there is a significant audible difference?  Of course not - the dynamics, the strong fundamental, the follow-on harmonic structures and decays make it very clear as to why the Steinway is deep into 6 figures.

The above is an extreme example but the same is applicable to very very few cables products vs. ALL the rest out there.  It is very easy to put together a system of high performing sources and electronics and botch it all up by using cables that severely or completely destroy the 3D presentation within the music.  And sadly this is all too often the case at audio shows.  But some exhibitors just get it right in tiny rooms, even with horrible accoustics.

And while we’re at it — let’s drop the “my system is so revealing I can hear everything” angle.

I assume that this was directed at me.  Actually, I have heard a few such systems out there and they have been my target for decades.    So I am not "dropping" anything.  My comments above were to simply share what a couple cable products can do to bring out the 3D that can be breathtaking once you hear it.  And again, sadly, a small fraction of systems out there can pull it off.  A big reason for this is that few cable products can pull it off.  For all the other cable products out there, it’s mostly about trading one set of tonal incoherency issues for another set to compensate and attempt to achieve system tonal coherency.  This is the dreaded, "synergy".