I've tried a variety of non-audiophile (industrial) and audiophile cables and written about some of the latter. The audiophile cables I tried introduce certain audiophile effects, such as more bass, larger soundstage, 'enhanced' imaging, silenced frequencies, defined transients, blacker backgrounds, etc. Some do what they claim to do. I agree that audiophile cables are more proliferated and can be more different in materials than what they were twenty years ago. Whether one considers newer cables as 'better performing' depends on one's values. Whether one considers the effects they cause to be a good thing, depends on one's values.
The way I make cable and power cord choices for myself is by listening to them in my system.
Which pro-audio, audiophile and non-audiophile (industrial) cables have you heard in your system?
The way I make cable and power cord choices is also by listening to them in my system. Over the years I've listened to Belden, Canare, and Mogami (that I am aware of) pro audio cables in my system, all of which sounded decent. I've also had friends and family members bring over cables fabricated from surplus studio, telecom/IT and military wire the manufacturers of which I didn't know or don't recall. I've tried multiple variations of the "Ching Cheng" power cables, all of which sounded etched, tonally "bleached", dynamically and spatially constricted, and unnatural (i.e., with a clear electronic signature). I've tried several different hospital grade power cords, which were only a little better than the Ching Cheng. I've owned/listened to many different audiophile power and signal cables in my system including ASI, Audio Magic, Audioquest, Cardas Clear, Cerious Technologies, Duelund, Echole, Hemingway Audio, HiDiamond, Lessloss, Soundstring, Townshend, Transparent, Van den Hul, and Verastarr. Up until about a decade ago I was on the "merry-go-round" with components and cables, changing/upgrading frequently. With cables my approach was to buy them used to try and resell them relatively quickly, holding onto longer only the few that really performed well. The last decade has brought relative stability to my audio life. My last move gave me the opportunity to have a dedicated listening room built, and to thoroughly address all of the distortion/noise related to power purity, mechanicl isolation, and room acoustics issues that can mask/overlay what components and cables are doing. My current system performs well enough compared to live music and the "state off the art" systems that I hear at shows, dealers, and audiophile friends' homes that I am off of the "merry-go-round" when it comes to components, although I may continue to experiment with cable upgrades. While I have had full looms of different cable brands/models the best system performance and synergy has resulted from matching cables to each component, particularly power cables which have made a bigger difference in my system than signal cables. At the end of the day, after 40+ years as an audiophile, no pro audio or other "high value" cables that I've heard have come close to the performance of the best high end audiophile cables I've used. When I turn on my current system I hear music appearing in space, untethered from the system, and with no apparent electronic signature. The sound is timbrally accurate, balanced, and natural sounding. None of the cables I’ve kept in the last five years have interacted sonically with my system to create audible anomalies. I've been building to this point for many years, but it was the Ehcole Omnia, Hemingway Audio Z-Core Beta, and Lessloss CMARC Entropic power cables that put my system “over the top”. All three feature innovative metallurgy, geometry and other advanced features that improve articulation and reduce noise, revealing more of the musical signal. Such advances/features are not found in pro audio and high value cables. My satisfaction with my system and these particular cables is of course related to my audio "values" as you point out. I believe that the "listening biases" that I posted in my profile represent my audio "values":
Listening Biases and Music Preferences:
The musical attributes of an audio system are more important to me than the sonic ones. While there is a minimum threshold for resolution, spatiality, and transparency to source that my system must meet, timbral accuracy and tonal color and density are more important to me than pinpoint imaging, soundstaging, or mining every detail in the media. If a system gets the gestalt of the music right I can live with less than state of the art resolution. I am not a stickler for "neutrality" which too often describes a cool to clinical sonic signature. I seek natural musicality and emotional engagement with the music, free from electronic artifacts, from the components and accessories that I purchase. For me this has always meant components/equipment whose sound is a little on the warm side of "neutral". I prefer vinyl over digital and require tubes in the chain in order to get the level of musicality I desire. While I was very late to add cd's to my collection I have been able to achieve natural, musical playback of sacd's and well recorded cd's with the Modwright modified players (and nothing else to date) featuring analogue tube output stages and tube rectified power supplies. I am particularly sensitive to a bright treble range and would prefer that it be slightly recessed rather than slightly shrill. I have yet to hear sliver conductor cables that didn't sound a little tipped up and thin, and detest the sound of Rhodium plated connectors which I have purged from my system.
I listen mostly to jazz and female vocals, blues, the R&B (e.g. Motown) that I grew up on, soundtracks, and a little classical. Luckily for me, since I have a small listening room since I prefer the intimacy of the jazz trio and string quartet to the complexity of the full orchestra and big band.
