I have never been in a double blind test. or even a blind test where I had no clue what cable I was hearing.
I bet you could use the same cable in each test and get wildly different reviews between them.
Yea, I am a believer in cables.
but i dont kid myself.
Yeah, I believe somewhat..but not past a certain price point
In a couple of studios that were acoustically treated to the hilt and built to rigid Acoustic Specs I was able to ID cables accurately..but in less than stellar acoustics(IE real world) settings, I have done much worse. I do not believe that differences are as obvious as some peddlers of magic would have one believe..but I am certain that they do exist, be they miniscule. There is a lot of clever marketing going on and I would bet any amount of money that for a lot of folks these(
and I am not talking about anyone here--neither TS members that are dealers nor non-dealing TS members) "drastic differences" would dissapear into oblivion once put into a blind testing enviroment,,stripped of buzzwords, dealers with agendas, and mindscrewing scripts read by acolytes .. Stereophile in particular(and the absolute sound, TNT, and pretty much every other ad-driven publication) provides hours of laughter, and for that I am thankful.
Again, I do believe that there are differences, but think that a lot of those "glaring" differences have a lot to do with psychology and marketing, and less to do with real scientific sonic differences..in a double blind test, differences became less obvious to me --most of the time, hardly noticeable at all in all environments but "perfect" ones.. Crazy what the mind can do. Cable/component shopping and setup(and research) is so fun, and I was quite dissapointed to see the lines blur. I want to believe in magic,but there is a line..and it stops at around 300 dollars. When cables I have cost as much as a car or a treehouse for my daughter or a quilting machine for my wife, I question my own sanity and lack of dignity. I also know that I , in times past, have bragged my ass off about things that I paid too much for. Partly for shame, partly because my dumb ass believed that these things were superior because they costed more. An immediate turnoff for me(dealer-wise) is when a dealer says something like "well those cables that costed XXX dollars are ok, but to get good sound, you must buy the cables that cost XXX dollars." That is a load of garbage. One cannot quantify "good" first of all, and it damn sure cant be defined by how much money is spent.
I am a proud disciple of
vampire wire now. They sound as good as anything I have ever worked with, the maker isnt full of shit, and most importantly..they dont cost a damned fortune.