It's an interesting topic to me. It's almost like discussing religion with someone you don't share beliefs with. Our experiences inform our opinion. If a cable produces a different perceived sound effect than another cable, and both cables measure perfectly according to standard practice, that creates a great deal of interest on my part, and a desire to better understand what is happening. The first thing I want to do is verify that I'm not experiencing a psychological effect from knowing things about the cable's cost and construction. When I've perceived distinct differences between cables I've found ways to listen without knowing for sure which cable I was listening to. To my utter astonishment the difference was no longer apparent when I did that, even though the setup hadn't changed at all, just my uncertainty about which way the selector switch was set. I've had similar experiences with equipment break in. On one occasion I bought two identical amplifiers and realized I had an opportunity to test break-in effects. I listened to both of them at the start. They both sounded the same. Then I used one for a month, listening for a few hours every night and running pink noise through load resisters for the rest of the time. So the amp ran 24 hours a day for a month straight. At the end I was sure the amp sounded better. I then plugged in the other amp that hadn't been used and it also sounded better in exactly the same way. That taught me what was really breaking in. I'm not insisting that these examples describe all the differences people perceive but I do think they represent something that is happening a lot of the time. Our sense of sound quality can be powerfully altered by means other than actually changing the sound. At least for some of us that is the case. I have yet to see any solid evidence that the standard accepted set of audio and electrical measurements are inadequate to account for perceived differences in sound quality, but I remain open to new discoveries. One thing that I feel is important is to compare measurements of a speaker's actual sound output when different devices are inserted into a system. There may be interactions between components that create unexpected issues. This is difficult or perhaps impossible to thoroughly test with all possible component configurations. I'd want to test specifically in configurations where a perceived benefit is noted. My suspicion is that it's not the most accurate and stable systems that reveal differences in components best, as is often suggested. I also suspect that there are intermittent issues, especially with digital signal paths, that can go undetected in a standard test bench procedure. Recently my friend got to hear distortion in my system that I hear once in a while. He's not an audiophile at all but when that distortion starts it's obvious. I have to reset the digital interface to make it go away. I suspect that more subtle intermittent distortions may also occur.
How does cable construction affect sonic character?
I think this altered cartoon expresses the gap between cable skeptics and believers. No one knows what happens in the brain, the machinery between the engineered cable and the subjective experience (expressed in language). It's something miraculous -- or, for skeptics -- it's nothing.