Make careful and critical listening tests - blind listening if possible.
Perhaps, audio may be deeply affected by perception and expectation, making it is quite easy to think something sounds better just by the look of it or by some technical hype and testimonials (all of which makes you concentrate harder and percieve something new you had not noticed before).
Just like in medicine, there is a 30% efficacy with just a placebo....no wonder some speakers, turntables and amplifiers look like they came from space ships.
If you look in pro audio magazines and pro studio equipment lists you are unlikely to see odd space ship shaped speakers and you are even less likely to find anything other than ordinary copper wires connecting them (they might be shielded or XLR but that is about all the differences that are likely to be found.)
If pros don't buy special cables and what you buy was mixed and mastered on ordinary copper cables.....then 1000's of dollars spent on exotic cables may be an unwise choice. Small degrees of difference may exist between cables but do they make an audible difference; pros do not appear to think they do.
Perhaps, audio may be deeply affected by perception and expectation, making it is quite easy to think something sounds better just by the look of it or by some technical hype and testimonials (all of which makes you concentrate harder and percieve something new you had not noticed before).
Just like in medicine, there is a 30% efficacy with just a placebo....no wonder some speakers, turntables and amplifiers look like they came from space ships.
If you look in pro audio magazines and pro studio equipment lists you are unlikely to see odd space ship shaped speakers and you are even less likely to find anything other than ordinary copper wires connecting them (they might be shielded or XLR but that is about all the differences that are likely to be found.)
If pros don't buy special cables and what you buy was mixed and mastered on ordinary copper cables.....then 1000's of dollars spent on exotic cables may be an unwise choice. Small degrees of difference may exist between cables but do they make an audible difference; pros do not appear to think they do.