first of all, my girlfriend is sitting right by my side. she actually likes stereo stuff almost as much as i do. in fact, she was the one that bought the more expensive cables, and i found a way to save her money by going with Home Depot 12awg. Without question, she was delighted at being able to save over $150 (after all, this means more shoes for her! {women have their weak points as well})
Anyway, i hoocked up the HD cables and i wanted them to work, i was very happy to have saved my girlfriend (which according to all of you should give a rats ass about stereo stuff to begin with) some money. She was very happy to do this. And then i said "honey come listen to the new speaker cable" and she flat out hated them. It made me qustion, bevcause for a moment i was psychologically overwhelnmed with wanting the HD to perform just as equal so that i could save her money which was my personal ultimate goal (wanna talk freudian here? ive read a book or two too). But she didnt like the system anymore. She said it was sounding like a car stereo(hopefully exagerrating) that it lacked soundstage and was very shrill sounding with no depth at all. Words from my girlfriend, words from the one true person that i even thought knew nothing about audiophile lifestyles! She said it, not me. And from under my dark corner i gasped, saying: sweetie, thats what i feel about these cables too! "Cables? cables?" she askied, "i thought you were playing best buy speakers just to trick me".
Guys, hear me now. there was no trick. all that was done is Home Depot cables were used in place of Tara Labs. Thats it. And she heard a difference so fast that she thought it was an entirely new system...really after this, how can you tell me there is no difference.

On another side,
If speaker cables Made No difference, then there would cease to be sooo many succesful speaker cable companys out there. You can use the "marketing" card for so long, but then it becomes mute, because neither I (captain frugal himself) nor a thousand other paying customers would simply succumb to expert marketeering unless they put "magic potion" in our cables so that when i touched them we would feel euphorically happy .
Come on, give it a rest, no cable companys are drugging us to HAVE to like their cables better. The simple truth is that, well, there are audible differences. So sorry if your ears can not dissiminate between the two. But, my ears work damn fine.

im not saying cables will make such an apparant difference in your system, what i am saying is that cables made all the difference in a hi-fi system. if you cannot hear this still, no worries, save yourself the extra bucks. be happy- thats what should be learned here. be happy and accept that sometimes, some people will hear a big audible difference between cable manufacturers, perhaps just not you. (dont forget for a moment that i was comparing 35c/foot cables with $10/foot cables.) you wouldnt want to drive a mercedes clk with honda civic tires would you? or do you not think there is a difference?