DO CABLES REALLY MATTER?

The main reason cables matter is to promote the  eristical behavior of audiophiles.

When I zipped the Royal Gorge I had a high level of confidence in the cable but somewhat less confidence in the teenager that hooked up my harness....so I watched his work closely.  Thankfully, he was good at his job!

@ricred1 

"We" make audio too complicated.

I agree with you, but if too many agree it will suck the fun out of these ridiculous threads....

@ricred1 
the rest of your post that I agree with 100%....

It's actually pretty simple...if you hear a difference with cables that you prefer than purchase them. If you don't hear a difference or you hear a difference that's not to your liking, don't purchase them. Audio is about preferences based on the context of the system and room. That includes speakers, amps, preamps, cables, and everything else.

The ridiculous part is the time spent arguing over what other people hear....and, of course, people who believe they hear what others tell them they should be hearing, and not to forget those who claim that people who do not hear the prescribed changes have either weak systems, poor hearing, or both, and finally those who claim it is scientifically impossible to hear differences in cables with like LCR properties.

A good game of dodgeball would have a better chance of sorting out differences in opinions about cables than the discussions of this thread.

Scarcastic?....maybe a little

@geoffkait 

Having said that, just going on the photos of the Graphene Gold Rush Tonearm cables, I want some.

Uh, Geoff, they do look cool but how are you going to hook them up to the walkman?

I am currently comparing a couple of different Roon endpoint devices in my system.  One of them outputs USB and the other one (the Ambre by Metrum) can output either bnc, AES/EBU, or I2S directly to my Metrum DAC, but not USB.  Metrum provided an I2S board that replaces the USB input board in my DAC so their endpoint can supply an I2S connection directly to their DAC.  While I am comparing the two devices, I wanted to keep the USB board in the DAC (and not install the new I2S board) so I could easily switch between the two devices, since the one device will only output USB.

From the Metrum endpoint to the DAC I tried a fairly high quality bnc cable and it sounded pretty good.  I had heard the AES/EBU input may sound better (although the I2S input is supposed to ultimately be the best).  I purchased a $12 AES/EBU 110 ohm cable from Amazon and it blows away the bnc connection.....a $12 cable!  So, while I believe cables do matter (to some extent), what they are connected to matters much more IMO.

Careful Geoff, you may be mistaken for a pseudo-skeptic