Therein lies at least one of the keys to hearing differences in cables, components, etc. I too experienced that when swapping components/cables between the 3 systems I once had. Only with the best, most revealing system to begin with was I able to hear noticeable differences/improvements.
Although this does have merit, it is also the psychological tool that is used to hush doubters, much like the fable of “The Emperor’s New Clothes” where onlookers were afraid to tell the Emperor that he was naked for fear of being punished.
The response and forced perception being that one’s system is not high-end enough, or one’s ears not good enough to hear the difference is common whenever there is a discussion of cables and accessories that are of dubious effect, where nobody seems to use this argument toward a higher-spec amplifier or preamp. Why? Because nobody has to argue that satellites and aircraft exist, but proving that UFOs or extra-terrestrials exist when it can’t be proven (beyond reasonable doubt?) is a completely different discussion.
@Mart Mccall makes an interesting analogy with bridges. A Civil Engineer can make all of the calculations, design a dam that in its environment will survive the anticipated loads and environment for X years with a Y engineering (safety) factor and it is a fine dam. Company Z can patent a technology that will protect it from a UFO landing mid-span with an oscillator that repels Grizzly Bears, Sasquatch and other non-human beings and make a claim that it should be installed based on all dams and bridges to avoid destruction from UFO landings. He then creates a scare among the residences protected by the dam, and there are enough people who don’t understand the “invention” fully and feel that it should be funded and installed, that the agency in charge is forced to install it. There are no failures of the dam, therefore it is successful, and the believers chastise the non-believers telling them how smart it is and how wrong they were because the dam has not had a UFO landing since installation and they were just not smart enough to know how important it was or too poor to be able to afford the UFO repeller.
There ARE better cables and terminations, but basically because they are better conductors, this can be proven. It also has been proven that unplugging and re-plugging connections will provide a clean connection and sometimes yields an improvement in audio quality, which you could hear replacing cables/wires with any new cable.
There are also cables that are marketed based on misapplied science, their superiority in many cases can be proven, but often only for RF frequencies or ultra-low-level signals, neither of which are applicable to speaker wires. The same applies to power cords and digital audio but another discussion. These are the UFO repellant science and the ones that many of us argue against, and by no surprise they are also usually by a large margin, the most expensive.
Again I have no reason to berate anyone who makes a choice different than what is supported by my beliefs, understanding, education, budget, … provided the choice is made with “eyes open” and not based on some misapplied scientific principal that has so little (or no) real effect
on audio frequencies as perceivable to the human ear and brain. I do have, because I like people, a strong desire to help people to understand when they’re clearly duped by a very polished and socially-engineered sales pitch to spend their money on a product that is not going to do what it states or implies it will do. I’m happy to see people experimenting, I do all of the time, and enjoying different shiny baubles for these systems provided these people understand that some (much) of this stuff is just marketing.
I’ve said before, music is art, audio systems are science, but choices of hardware can be better compared to religion. Arguing which religion and choices within evoke more passion than logical choices and never end well.
<edit> Sorry for the rant(s)
