I see the issue with ABX blind testing

Professing those perceptions to be “consistent, clear, and repeatable” for others is, however, either in honest error or purposefully misleading.

@benanders So, you’re saying I’m not hearing what I’m hearing despite hearing it consistently after multiple back-and-forth comparisons?  It’s really sad some people need studies to tell them what they can and can’t hear.  I’d submit it’s misleading (and arrogant) for you to maintain that using your ears is an error and misleading based on some study somewhere.  Pretty sure most people here have been able to discern differences between two products, but I guess you need to be told what you can hear rather than being able to objectively judge something for yourself.  Sad.  Deaf ears indeed.

A fundamental property of human perception is that it is variable. The same person experiencing the same thing on different occasions will have a slightly different experience of that thing. Different people experiencing the same thing at the same time will also have slightly different experiences of that thing. That is why measurement of psychological phenomena typically makes use of samples of data. If each person's experience is measured using a psychologically valid scale you will get a distribution of measurements with an average value and a degree of variability (e.g., standard deviation or statistical error). This enables you to say whether two distributions of data are different from one another (or not). 

So, invite a dozen buddies over to listen to each cable (not telling them which is which) and have each of them rate each cable using a psychologically valid metric (a 7-point scale anchored with the labels Like Extremely, Like Somewhat, Like Slightly, No Opinion, Dislike Slightly, Dislike Somewhat, Dislike Extremely would suffice) and you will get an average and a standard deviation for each cable. Calculate the Mean and 95% Confidence Interval for each distribution and if the two don't overlap, well, then, pick the cable with the highest mean Liking.

You can see that this takes a bit of work, but that is what is required for a  psychologically valid answer. I have actually done such research for several corporations at which I have worked. Same thing applies for visual and tactile experiences.

@wolf_garcia 

I can't see what you're saying, but I hear ya.

I picture some of these guys starving if they had to hunt for food to survive.  The conversation in the woods would go something like this:  “You only think you heard a deer because you wanted to hear a deer.  I didn’t hear anything therefore, there is no deer.  We need to move on.“

So, invite a dozen buddies over to listen to each cable 
 

another invalid use case. And another reason why blind testing doesn’t work in audio. Aside from sound preferences being highly personal so I wouldn’t care what my buddies think is the best sound if it isn’t the best sound to me, you’re polling people who aren’t familiar with one’s system and who aren’t even audiophiles. 

Experience shows when we’re having discussions like this and clearly a lot of people out there lack it. 
 

If you need blind testing or your buddies to tell you which cables sound best, don’t waste your time and money. Just get a system that plays music and enjoy it. Don’t burden yourself.