No slight taken.

However, your comments presume a lot and fall into the same traps I see with many people who have engineering / technical backgrounds: Namely, there is a presumption that audible differences in interconnects (1) either do not exist or are minimal; and (2) that looking at the cable solely from the construction / materials standpoint alone is somehow indicative of how it will sound in your system.

Regarding item #1, the differences I have heard between the various cables I have tried in my system had nothing to do with a flaw in the cable, but the intrinsic differences between the cables and how they sounded in my system. And like audio components, how a cable specs' out on paper has little if anything to do with how it ultimately sounds in your system.

I respect your engineering background and the depth of knowledge that brings to the table in forums such as this. However, I do not think that it can somehow negate 20+ years of empirical evidence and real world listening experiences that I, and thousands and thousands of hifi enthusiasts, have had regarding audible differences between interconnects, silver or otherwise. We're not talking about Clever Little Clocks here, we're talking about hosts of manufacturers who have decades of product development crafting hundreds of iterations of cables based on various metals, dialectrics, capacitance levels, braiding, shielding, etc. and an equally well established group of pro reviewers, hobbyists, audio designers, etc. who have listened to and used products and connectors outside the design and construction realm of Belden 1694a. Look at a cross section of high end products out there and you're going to see silver litz wiring, tiffany/WBT connectors and other components used across the board. Do you think these products would be used so extensively if they sounded no different than stuff they could pick up at Radio Shack?

Regarding item #2, we used to run into this all the time at the store 20 years ago. A customer would come in with a magazine that focused on how products compared on paper not actual listening tests (i.e. Consumer Reports). Usually, there weren’t huge differences when comparing equipment in this manner and the usual pronouncement was just get a product that has these minimum spec’s and you’ll be happy, because anything beyond that doesn’t sound any different. Basically, this was total baloney. Indeed, some of our best sounding components fared worse on paper compared to our cheaper lines. A tube amp is going to spec’ out worse in some parameters than a budget receiver. But the tube amp sounded a hell of a lot better. How does how well a product images show up on paper? How does that great liquid midrange that you get with vacuum tubes compare with a solid state amp on a bench test? How can you technically measure how much more natural a human voice sounds, how the body of a violin resonates or how well notes decay on my new McCormack amp compared to my old Adcoms? Fact is you can’t, so you listen and see for yourself. Do you think MKTheater’s excellent review of the 990 vs. the Meridian would have meant anything if he and his audio buddies didn’t sit down and do a shoot out of the two units? Of course not.

My advice to Lizard King is don’t get caught up in paper / technical comparisons as they will tell you little if anything about how the product will sound in your system. Instead, do what most audio enthusiasts, audio designers, and reviewers have done for years: try it yourself in your system and let his ears be the judge.