can speaker cables help?

Without mentioning your equipment or room setup this is like throwing darts at a board, so let us know what you've got if you can.

That said, cables can help if the ones your currently using are masking detail in your system, thereby clouding the information at the rear of the stage. However, I think it's much more likely it has more to do with either your speakers and/or how you've placed them in your room(of course it's also dependent on the other components in your system). If you haven't done so, try pulling the speakers out 4 feet or so from the front wall to give them some room to breathe(it may look silly, but just try it and see what happens). It's impossible to say at this point, but if it's not speaker placement it's more likely your speakers and/or box components are the problem. One other related point, certain music lends itself to this type of soundstage more than others, so if you're listening mainly to mainstream pop/rock it will have less apparent depth than well-recorded jazz or classical music.

Tim

In my experience, Soix is dead-on regarding speaker placement. It took me about two weeks of fiddeling (20 min per day after work) to get my set-up where I was satisfied. One problem, and it just might be me, after about 15 minutes of listening I seemed to loose my objectivity. I had to keep notes to insure I was making progress. After that, I begged, borrowed and finally bought new cables. They did make a noticable difference but I do not think I would have recognised their added value, without first being sure they were the only change.

I completely agree with the two previous posts, speaker placement is SO very important. My listening chair has castors so I can roll around and change my listening distance. The change in soundstaging and location of musical elements is very noticeable. Positioning of speakers and their toe-in is also critical to the size and focus of the aural illusion.

Consttraveler, just like you I lose a lot of my objectivity if I listen too long. It may have to do with our attention spans or maybe it's just that we adjust to what we're hearing and the difference we noted earlier recedes into haze.