Quote Originally Posted by okiemax
You may be falling behind developments in wire. According to some cable makers' web sites, the more expensive cables are supposed to be neutral rather than act like tone controls. So the best wire would be the wire that comes closest to being no wire at all. Of course, they still make the other kind too.
You are onto the crux of the matter. A perfect cable would be 100% neutral and pass the signal from A to B along its length without any alteration of the signal whatsover.

The problem is that it is proposed that wire like 12 gauge zip cord can also do this or at least to a degree that any change to the signal would not be audible. When people claim that 12 gauge zip cord is inferior to one of those more expensive cables, then it has to be shown that the zip cord is altering the signal in an audible manner. I suppose this can be shown in rediculous circumstances like a thousand foot long cable or some extreme amplifier output impedences or weird speakers. But for most of us with mid or even hi fi amps and speakers with magnetic voice coils and 8, 6 or 4 ohm impendences, the math doesn't support it and there certainly have been no demonstrations to support it either.