Problem of compensating with cable a component tone problem?


This thread was actually from a kind of rant by teo_audio in another thread. That post was really the start of a whole other thread. and so here it is.                           
The notion is that some folks err when they buy cables to compensate for tonally odd equipment. Say your preamp is dark sounding. So to may it ll good you buy a 'bright' IC cable. Later you buy a different preamp, and  now your system sounds bright, so you buy a dark sounding speaker cable.. On it goes. all messed up.      
So what is you 'defense' against this kind of error upon error?                       
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To add fuel to the fire. here is a large part of teo_audio original post:                             
""" It’s a careful balancing act of understanding the gear and the cable.

Eg, dark system so you get a cable which exaggerates highs in an edgy fashion and then you thinly you’ve got clarity and balance...but no....

What you’ve really got is two wrongs eq’d out against one another... and the perceived clarity is not signal, it’s actually signal based hash, distortion, and noise.

First the signal is gone missing with the dark gear and then what’s left is distorted into false highs and transients that are bloated and dirty, via the screechy cable. It’s a grotesquery.

Figuring this sort of thing out can take a bit of time.

In the example above, it would be best to start with more neutral gear and then more neutral cables, instead something that plays out like two cars tied together with a rope and each doing burnouts trying to pull each the other way.

When you do it right, then... more music of various quality becomes listenable and you get to train your ears and brain is what is RIGHT, instead of flavored distortion. You have to have the correct signal representation there in order to recognize it, so it’s a catch 22 of a sort. It will take time to lean to hear it.

It’s a big deal, a very big deal, it’s the whole freaking enchilada.

We need more people recognizing these issues in this way.  """
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elizabeth
Teo is correct.It's not easy to match your components  correctly until you make your mistakes and get some experience.Long ago I was fascinated by cabling and was sure I could achieve my goals if I could just find the proper combination of cabling.It just doesn't work.And it's doubly difficult with having to do most of your shopping online a piece at a time.
I would just say this problem is one good reason to not spend a lot on cables... until you are finally sure the equipment you own are KEEPERS!             
Like when I decided to upgrade, even though I liked my system.. I bought the same brand of speakers, so I would be pretty sure they would behave the same way and sound similar, just better.       
(I went from Magnepan 3.6 to 20.7 speakers) And if i upgrade the amp, it too is going to be a Bryston, maybe newer, maybe bigger, but the same sound, just a little better.
That makes a lot of sense Elizabeth.When you know what you like and want a little more of what you like.Then the cables just hook everything together without causing a problem.Enhancing your system rather than compensating for something.
Seems to me that those of us that pick and choose a variety of cabling we use, do so as to color the sound to our individual liking. That might not be the same way the live music sounded when origionally performed. Not that theres anythning wrong with that.
Compensating factors like cables, tweaks and other after-the-fact adjustments are simply added distortions to the original source signal. It can only be subtractive, not additive. The key is to design, assemble and implement a system that does the least amount of harm to the source in the first place.

Great thread!