I now try not to get involved in polemic, pointless and generally fractious cable debates, as neither side listens to the other.
I have heard cables from Atlas (including Mavros and Asimi), Chord (including Tuned Aray), TCI, QED, Linn, Cardas, Clearer Audio, Telurium Q, Vetere, Naim, Audioquest and Furutech.
There has been expensive cables that I didn't like and cheap ones that I did. I have heard differences, some subtle and some more obvious. I can only report what I hear and will never state that my views are fact. I will also suggest that people try for themselves, while never spending more than would bring a bigger gain elsewhere in the system.
If someone is interested in my experiences, or wants suggestions, I will try to help, whether at the value or expensive end of the market....but what I'm reluctant to do, is get embroiled in a mud slinging match.
A few years back, I bought an Atlas Voyager I/C from EBay, which was to be an upgrade from the Linn Black that I was currently using. When inserted into the system, it sounded forward, shouty and slightly sibilant. I persevered for a week then removed it. A month or so later, I traded it in with Lyric hifi against another purchase.
Roll on a couple of years and I was back in Lyric deciding whether I would buy some R100s, or pay the extra for the LS50s. I had 2 long sessions over a couple of weekends, where I decided that the LS50s were indeed well worth the extra. So before shelling out the extra, I brought the long suffering Mrs. Cno down to make sure she was happy with the decision.
Anyway, the system was set up the same as the last two times...but something was definitely off. The sound was grating and slightly unpleasant and the natural involving sound from previous sessions was absent.
When Michael left the room to see to another customer, I decided to poke around to see if I could spot a problem....the speaker cables were the same instal cables he always used and the equipment was also all the same, including the speaker stands.
When looking behind, I suddenly spotted there was an Atlas Voyager I/C being used. This greatly puzzled me, as he doesn't sell Atlas and always uses Linn Blacks. When he'd finished with the customer, I asked him why he'd connected it up with the Atlas. He replied, that the day before, he had somebody asking if they could try something more "lively" than the Linn Blacks, so he had routed around his shop and found the Voyagers. He then had forgot to change them over for my dem.
Anyway, the Linn Blacks were returned to the system and the shoutyness went away and the speakers sounded as I had remembered.
It turns out, that these were the Voyagers that I had traded in and I certainly wasn't expecting them to be used in a dem system 2 years later.
I don't claim that this event proves anything, only that I heard differences in a "test" that was so blind, that I didn't even know it was a test....and what I heard from the Voyager on that day was consistent with the reasons that I traded it in all those years ago.