To the doubters and naysayers regarding the ability of cables to influence reproduced sound, I would ask you to consider the following. Shunyata Research, a favorite target of those who love to cast the curse of "snake oil purveyor," has another company devoted to serving the medical community called Clear Image Scientific. They market power cords and power conditioners to hospitals for the purpose of of increasing the resolution of medical imaging devices in electrophysiology labs by reducing noise riding on power lines. Clear Image's products use the same build characteristics and materials as Shunyata's audio products. (If you are of the mindset that power line noise is of no consequence to the end result your audio system reproduces, then continue with your current skepticism.) Here is a link to Clear Image's website and a list of of some of their medical clients:
http://clearimagescientific.com/case-studies/Here is a short video from Shunyata showing an Axpona demo of a Clear Image power cord's noise reduction capabilites:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=shunyata+axponaI find Shunyata/Clear Image provides rather clear evidence that their products actually do affect power line noise riding on electrical lines. If one accepts the evidence that a power cord CAN affect power line noise, then one confronts two further possibilities.
One, while power line noise can be affected by a power cord, it's inconsequential to the sound an audio system reproduces. Also, I suppose it's possible that the frequencies of noise affecting medical imaging equipment is different from that which affects audio equipment and could account for different degrees of effectiveness in each application.
Two, if one accepts that power line noise can affect audio reproduction, then perhaps the inability of ABX blind testing to establish definitive effectiveness illustrates that ABX testing is an imperfect arbiter of effectiveness. Of course, that is another can of worms we can debate endlessly as well.
