What do audiophiles want from a cable?

Well wax waves, I have heard little to no improvement over fairly mundane cable technology, in my system. I use Canare Starquad microphone cable for interconnect. For speaker cable I use Goertz when I'm not using an exotic solution which only works in my system (nichrome wire speaker cables instead of resistors at the speaker).

I understand that some cables will sound unrefined and nasty in some systems, while others will sound fine. I suspect that this is because some cables act as filters, removing the nasties. I also suspect that this is not your opinion.

Yes terry9, in some cases a cable will sound just fine.  You would never know what you were missing.

I think some cables do act as filters, but not in the sense that most think.  The cable is not filtering thru the audio signal, but filtering OUT all of the crap that is detrimental.  Mainly stuff that comes in on the a/c line that keeps the equipment from optimal performance.  I'm a fan of what ferox has done for my system as well as the Bybee products.  

I pick cables to get the best out of and not restrict the full potential of my components.To me its all about a balanced system.I run all Furutech which are better then out of the box cables .

Cables essentially are tone controls. You are basically altering the lows, mids, and highs by trial and error. It just comes down to which one floats your boat in your room with your setup.

Waxwaves, you use Purist cables, all Ferox. Have you ever tried Purist fluid cables? Now when it comes to Purist it's a fun game, there used to be fluid and Ferox cables with both Ag/Cu/Au alloy conductors, that's, mostly silver, and Cu/Ag/Au alloy, that's, mostly copper. The newest Luminist revision has no Ag/Cu/Au with fluid combination.
I have original Colossus fluid speaker cables, Neptune Luminist Single Crystal Copper fluid RCAs, original Colossus Ferox RCAs, used to be fluid that I bought with Ferox, and original Maximus Ferox RCAs that used to be fluid in my set-up. Fluid and Ferox have their strengths, the analogy could be that fluid Purist, especially all copper, sounds like a tube amp, and Ferox like hybrid/warmer transistor. The Neptune that I recently got has an incredible deep and layered soundstage that I doubt  any other Purist cable could match, and also exquisite slightly rounded highs. Other things being equal, Ferox may be a little quiter with tighter bass. So, no wonder that a number of people use both fluid and Ferox cables in their systems. Some would call it sound manipulation, yet others would call it fine tuning. I would not run all Ferox cables in my system but I could run all fluid cables, provided I had Ag/Cu/Au speaker cables. Single Crystal Silver with Ferox might give the ultimate resolution speed and bass and balance with great soundstage but it costs a fortune.