What do audiophiles want from a cable?


What should a high quality interconnect or speaker cable do to the sound of a system? Make it more transparent? Improve the sound stage and focus? Soften unpleasant highs? Tighten the base? Bring out the mids?

To me, a good cable should reveal more of what is on the recording and more of the true nature of my components. So when trying new cables, I look for more detail and accuracy without becoming cold and clinical. This seems logical, and yet after reading reviews and trying a few of the cables in the reviews, I find that the cables that have received glowing endorsements are not especially transparent or revealing. They modify the sound, but they don’t take me where I want to go. I wonder if the reason I don’t hear what the reviewer heard is that I don’t know what to listen for. Am I too focused on cable accuracy and resolution, and not enough on actual sound quality? Or is it just a case of no two systems sounding alike so why trust a review anyway? Thanks.
mward
"I am a cable denier, but the Shunyata cords were clearly better than my existing cables, no question."

This statement speaks for itself.  
Ah ha!  Another cable denier turned away from the dark side!  Congrats, it only gets better from here and knowing is half the battle.
In addition, the Amusing fact is the figures a man gets on tests are the same with most of cables but the feeling of sound differs drammatically. Imho the "soul" of cable lays beyond the boundaries of physics and can't be measured by dry figures of measurement devices. Continuing in this humoristic manner my imho sounds as silly as it is but that is why there are so many cable deniers that turning away from the dark side and that's why we have so many cables on the market..
 
whitestix

I haven't seen much of GK posting, but he can be relied upon for contributing nothing but nonsense to the discussion. 

What? Whoa! Where's that coming from. Oh, California. Never mind.