1. As I mentioned in my first post, I presume that his technical defence of cables sounding different fall short, but I'm not sharp enough with electrical theory to detail how, myself. So I presented this to, among other things, allow more knowledgeable people here to "call out" exactly why the response was insufficient.
2. I default to assuming JA is giving arguments that he finds plausible. So to the degree he's mistaken, it's still an honest representation of where he stands on the issue.
So as I said, I appreciate JA took a technical approach in his response, and while others feel his being wrong indicates some issue with integrity, I don't necessarily and still have a lot of respect for JA. Even when he may be wrong I think overall he's been a class act. YMMV.
It’s simple. Does the waveform come out of the cable the same as it went in? Except in boundary cases of grossly incorrect designs, yes.
The belief system, however, denies that the waveform we can measure tells the whole story. Yet we can measure it far more finely than we can hear it—to the level of distortions typically 120 dB less powerful than the signal, when we can hear, like, 70, and then only with special techniques and test signals.
The controlled subjective testing we ask for here is merely a way to empirically validate to the non-technical what is already in abundant evidence from engineering analysis.
Rick “JA knows this” Denney