Just recently
My friend bought a used Project Tube Phono Stage D2, came with 2 sets of matched tubes, different respected brands
Hooks it up with his expensive name brand cables. Sounded bad. Tested the tubes with big Jackson Tube Tester I gave him. Changed the tubes, still bad. Changed to other high end cables, no change, still bad.
I grab 4 different inexpensive cables from my interconnect drawer, off I go, I agree, sounds lifeless.
We switch cables, 3 of the 4 no change, lifeless, I’m feeling sorry for him at this point.
4th cable was a 3 wire video cable left over from the VHS days. No name, nothing special, but why not try the audio l/r of it?
He had visual disrespect for them, but, to humor me, put them in.
The damn thing came alive. We listened to many LP’s we are familiar with, all sounded great.
How? What the hellll, neither of us can believe our ears.
He did further research, ordered a Belden cable (the brown one), hopes it will be as good or better. Hah, I should charge him big money for my nondescript cable instead of giving it to him!