I'm glad you've found your audio nirvana, but I remain extremely skeptical of such claims, even though I'm sure they are quite real to those who experience them in uncontrolled circumstances. I'm sure I'd probably believe I heard a difference as well. If I did hear a difference, I'd want to be sure that difference was actually real and not just perceived. The only way to determine that with any sort of certainty is through blind tests -- in which you pit cable A against cable B without knowing which is playing.
I have a feeling the night and day difference those expensive interconnects seem to create would be significantly diminished under those circumstances (as they have many a time before).
Well, there's a caveat to this. In my case, I'm a studio guy who's spent years analyzing sound by ear for everything from producing songs to picking apart songs by ear to arrange them for others. My relative is a 20 something who just has a visceral gut level reaction to a stereo, like most pople, and everyone can tell whether a stereo sounds good, bad, or incredible. My stereo was already incredible, and had become an alternative to gaming night, when the guys would bring over their CDs for a night of "mini-concerts." We were all fairly familiar with the sound of my ARCAM Delta 290, Mission CD player and TDL Monitor 2s with my budget Audioquest cable. It was outstanding as it was, enough that I gained a rep as "the guy with the stereo you HAVE to hear." And while it didn't gain me any lady friends, sadly, it made me very popular with the guys.
Also, I'd already gone through this experience with Monster Cable, which was disappointing. I couldn't believe people would spend $50 on that stuff. The speaker wire was decent, but like everyone else's 14 or so gauge cable. The Audioquest got my attention though. And then came the day of the $1000 loaners.
The best test, as it is with the Axiom home trial, is to use something with the system you're familiar with. And mine was a road well traveled. I'd listened to a LOT of music on cheap cable, and a lot MORE on the more involving budget Audioquest. And then with the expensive stuff... it's hard to get around putting on a CD we'd both listened to several times and then looking at each other, wondering if there was a hidden remix track we'd stumbled across. Nothing was different but the cable. What was resolving things more accurately was the cable. What made the soundstage larger was the cable.
No one will make you spend money on new wires. But when some of you guys are spending way more than $2000 on a set of Axioms - which I'm getting close with the piano gloss Redwood M60s I want - spending $15 for 3 ft Dayton interconnects and $50 for a 10 ft pair of Dayton speaker cables from Parts Express is almost like pizza money. I doubt you could accuse Outlaw of making or having their own cables made just for the heck of it. I recommend their stuff too.
Studios and television stations use this high definition cable, much of it either Mogami or Cardas, not because it's shielded better, but because it sounds better. Heck, for $65 to link up a CD/DVD/Blu-Ray player and pair of front channel speakers with Daytons, the cost of a Playstation video game, it's not much just to give it a taste.
