Interconnects and non-believers

I agree that they will make your system sound better. Cables physically will make no difference, but the more you spend on them the better your system will sound. Knowing that you spent money on good cables will make your mind believe that there is a huge difference in sound even though there is physically no difference between the conductivity and the cables. Personally I upgraded my cables, and my system sounds so much better!

If the rest of the system and speakers are mediocre, better cables likely won’t make a notable difference. Probably not worth the investment. With more revealing audio systems, there can be a notable difference.

Over the years I had tried various interconnects, copper, silver over copper, silver in varying lengths too. Eventually over time upgraded all of my interconnect RCA and XLR cables on the main input sources and components with varying degrees of positive improvement. Most notable between preamps-to-amplifiers and CD/DAC-to-preamp. Rewarding in some cases.

Recently, I was surprised to notice a very positive difference swapping out some old mid-grade brand name RCA interconnects with much higher grade pure copper ICs for my FM-Tuner-to-tube-preamplifier. Prior, never thought it would make a difference for FM too. It sure can. All connectors and connections were clean on both cable sets, and (yes, FM tuner). I was not expecting any difference at all. Wow, a notable difference, to a surprising degree. Smoother, extended highs, more bass, fuller sounding, larger sound stage and definitely more engaging - much less irritating. In reverse to check myself and hearing, swapped many times back and forth; re-installed the former cables (and a few other mid grade cables) and it sounded like crap again, harsh, not engaging. Sometimes (not always), interconnects can be a weak link in a given audio system if everything else is up to par.  

imith314
Your post made me smile. I was going to get around to expressing the same thought, but you beat me to it!
In my opinion, it is the same thing with so-called "Burn-In" whether with cables, electronics or whatever. The 'burn-in' is occuring inside the Brain! :-)
I just replaced my speaker cables which really were too small (16 Awg) with a 14 foot pair of 14AWG Monster XPHP the largest that will fit the holes in my binding posts. Now that I have listened for a while, there really IS an improvement: but I am curious about my wiring of the old cables.
The difference in resistance/ft between 16AWG and 14 AWG is less than 50% and we're talking milliohms here. And I don't think I had them miswired as far as relative, or "absolute" phase, but who knows? The stereo image seems to be more coherent and the channel ballance is improved. I think that my realization that 16 guage was below minimum requirement was correct, and that the 14 is more appropriate for my cable runs of 14 feet.
Maybe I need to try a Killobuck cable-set but that would approach the total cost of my system! ;-)

@prof 

^Great Post. 

May the last 4 posts be a lasting reminder of why not to start a cable thread next time one is tempted.

Dave