Regardless of what explanation makes the most sense, why not just give these things a try in your own system? Simple enough to do, as I keep mentioning.
Thanks, but no thanks. I've been that route before. I did convince myself in the past that cables made a difference. I still have some transparent interconnects.
I got rid of my high priced speaker cables when I had to get something longer in my current house, can't say I've really missed them. I would like to find them though for another system.
My power conditioner died when I did some recent system changes, the only thing I missed is that it fixed a ground loop, but a cheap cheater plug took care of that. With my current setup, it's too much of a pain to run wires through the walls from one shelf to the next.
As an EE major in college and now (for 25yrs) a physician, I guess I know too much about science. I don't have time or patience to do a proper DBT.
I'm putting my upgrade money into speakers.