Audiophiles should learn from people who created audio

We need to distinguish between things that are a matter of taste (do you like candle light or halogen lights, or Bach or Metallica?), and things that are a matter of emperical reality (what is the colour temperature in degrees Kelvin of candle light or halogen light?). About matters of taste one can have an opinion, but not about the emperical facts. You cannot 'prefer' gravity, or a higher speed of sound. In that sense science is not democracy. Of course, establishing the facts may be tricky, but that is not the same as that they are a subject for opinion.

@willemj - exactly. However, I believe, in your quest to prove the irrelevance of ’fancy’ cables, you overstate what science knows and refuse to even entertain the notion that there may be aspects of human cognition relating to cables in amplified music systems that haven’t been quantified. Your position is absolute, and, in this instance, does not deserve to be. We aren’t arguing about the value of the acceleration due to gravity on Earth.
You are conflating all findings of science with established theories. And we all know that even those are also best guesses made within specific parameters based on an understanding of the data rooted within a particular time frame. As far as I know, there isn’t well funded research into the fields of acoustics and audio electronics at the level there was in the first half of the 1900s. So we’re still using those theories when the science that underlies what those theories are based on has changed. Sure they still work. But it doesn’t mean they describe everything and are complete. As a scientist, you should know that. Otherwise, what’s the point of further research? Since there are no big labs out there, exploring the subtleties of audio cables, there isn't likely to be a lot of data or grand research. It's just 'us' messing around out here with our wires.

Out of curiosity, have you tried any aftermarket cables? What do you connect your components to each other with? 

This seems appropriate, an excerpt from the Intro of Zen and the Art of Debunkery,

As the millennium turns, science seems in many ways to be treading the weary path of the religions it presumed to replace. Where free, dispassionate inquiry once reigned, emotions now run high in the defense of a fundamentalized "scientific truth." As anomalies mount up beneath a sea of denial, defenders of the Faith and the Kingdom cling with increasing self-righteousness to the hull of a sinking paradigm. Faced with provocative evidence of things undreamt of in their philosophy, many otherwise mature scientists revert to a kind of skeptical infantilism characterized by blind faith in the absoluteness of the familiar. Small wonder, then, that so many promising fields of inquiry remain shrouded in superstition, ignorance, denial, disinformation, taboo . . . and debunkery.

• Put on the right face. Cultivate a condescending air certifying that your personal opinions are backed by the full faith and credit of God. Adopting a disdainful, upper-class manner is optional but highly recommended.

• Employ vague, subjective, dismissive terms such as "ridiculous," "trivial," "crackpot," or "bunk," in a manner that purports to carry the full force of scientific authority.

• Keep your arguments as abstract and theoretical as possible. This will send the message that accepted theory overrides any actual evidence that might challenge it -- and that therefore no such evidence is worth examining.

The above says it all.

@geoffkait agreed! Ken Wilber uses the term scientism. I like that. It's the ossification of what should be a fluid and dynamic understanding of the world using science into a dogmatic structure where anything that hasn't been 'proven' by science is deemed to be nonexistent or inconsequential.
It's all underlaid by the mind's desire for certainty. Always having to figure things out is stressful and makes it difficult to maintain the illusion of an independent self operating upon the world. And that is frankly terrifying for most people. I see it almost every time I teach a yoga class or meditation session..