Long XLR's: PAD Venustas versus Mogami

Regarding the speaker spike suggestion...After messing around with spikes for many years I recently put Vibrapods under my smallish floorstanding speakers (wood floor). Sounds great...and I see more speaker manufacturers (and tweek designers) using some form of speaker "de-coupling" technology (like the Sonus Faber Amati Futura). Is this a paradigm shift?

Since when does your hearing deterioration obviate gear differences? Does soundstaging comprehension or perception of tonal subtlety change? No. Note how many pro engineers are over 50...or over 70...mastering geniuses like Bob Ludwig, etc. Some top end goes but that's pretty much it. I can hear gear differences and I've been playing loud guitar since 1967...some tinitus and some top end loss...and ghostly voices inside my head to keep me company.

In case anyone missed it...I recently had a bad (relatively) experience with some new 1 meter Mogami Neglex/Neutrik terminated balanced cables...they were surprisingly unlistenable in my system (Kavent S33, Forte' Model 55), and this is after using Mogami for mic cables for many years. Go figure. I suppose I should have waited for a "break-in" period but it was just too unbearable even for that...replaced 'em with Audioquest Diamondbacks and they are so much better I just bought a second pair to connect my DAC to the balanced pream inputs.