Give us details about your system so we can see what we are dealing with and I will be glad to send you some cables to sample too. Then you can hear for yourself whether or not it is absurd.
Hmm - well I guess this is not the place to try to say
why or even my opinion, about cables - sorry? My background a little first, then my listening situation...
When I was a kid my dad owned a stereo store which had a record store adjacent to it (~ 1970s). My birthday present when I was eight was a Dyna SCA-35 Integrated Tube Amp (
http://www.quadesl.com/refurb/refurb_dynaSCA35.html ), a Gerard? turntable, and a pair of "db" brand 2-way 8" paper woofer / paper cone tweeter (aluminum dust cap) vented bookshelf speakers. For many many years I enjoyed listening to music with that system - there was nothing unpleasant about the sound, listening to music was simply enjoyable. I lost all of that gear eventually for various reasons.
Flash forward to the most recent decade or so, [almost] all the commercial speakers I listen to have a sound ranging from mediocre to terrible. Stuff at Best Buy is just weak, flimsy resonant boxes, cheap easily distorting woofers, metal/mylar tweeters with FR like a roller coaster... And the "high end" stuff? Well, take something like mid/high end B&W for example - as soon as they start playing my ears start hurting from the overly bright harsh tweeters. I've gone to audition in Manhattan, Tokyo, various other places listening to speakers ranging from $100 - $20,000 (have not bothered to listen to anything above that price range). And the only speakers I actually really
liked were the Madrigal Revel Salon Ultimas. So, I read up on them, read about the Harmon group and their test labs...
Other related experience: I spent a few years working with a gentleman who has been in the audio speaker industry for over 30 years, he's worked with the likes of Bob Carver (he built the first prototype for Bob's Sunfire sub, for example (still has it on the shelf at his factory) etc. etc. I discussed with him in depth the possibility of different cables "sounding" different and he went over many tests that he has personally conducted and testing that other people and companies have done, personal conversations he'd had with folks like Floyd Toole..... In conclusion, after decades of experience with various sorts of testing with many different sorts of people participating there was
one type of situation where there was a genuine audible difference between different speaker cables and that was: cables that were thin enough that there was a significantly greater resistance, which, has a varying degree of effect changing with frequency. So, I didn't "just read it in a book somewhere".
As to my listening situation - I've got an Onkyo TX-DS787 receiver, various T-amps, a Sure 4 x 100 Tripath chip amp, a cheap old Sony receiver, and a Jolida 102B amp which, unfortuantely, is in need of repair. For a source I use either an old Sony CD changer, a portable CD player, or FLAC files on my PC played through Foobar2000. I have various soundcards including some with > 100 db sn ratio and a Berhinger 1024USB mixer with external USB sound in / out.
As to the idea of different amps sounding different, I would say that between solid state amps the difference
should be insignificant
relative to the differences between different speakers / rooms. I'm not saying there isn't a difference, I'm saying, logically, it should be so small as to be irrelevant [so long as there is ample headroom and the dynamic peaks of the music you are playing can be adequately driven by your amp]. Despite that, I do typically "feel" that my Onkyo amp is somehow "cold" sounding. It has plenty of power - given a good pair of speakers capable of playing loud and clean, I can play music loud enough to feel like I'm at front + center stage at a rock concert. When I had a friend over who was a "metal" fan and played some Ministry at "reference level, - 0.0 db, his jaw dropped at how loud, clean, and clear the sound was. But... that system (and various similar configurations as I mixed and matched) just didn't give me the enjoyment that I had had with the cheap old system I used to have. Music wasn't "engaging", didn't have the same vibrancy/energy + therapeutic soothing appeal that I missed.
The best illustration I can give as to what I'm seeking, that is missing is: if you listen to a cello in an intimate setting you don't just
hear the music - you
feel the vibration on your skin, through the floor with your feet, it moves you viscerally. The only time I could come close to that was when I listened in my car with the subwoofer on at volumes that damaged my hearing.
I have designed speakers which are a commercial succes and received rave reviews. I think they are decent, as far as speakers in the ~$1,000 price range go. They do some things really well, and it was fun to demo them and see how surprised people got when they heard them. But, compared to the $20K Ultimas, there are some areas where they don't quite reach the same level of performance.
I have
started quite a few designs for myself, but always stopped part way through as I find deficiencies... (And my wife tells me to come inside from the garage - we've got a couple kids now and I have a non-speaker related job, and am a full time college student again after a ~20 year hiatus).
I bought a pair of the B2031P thinking back to how I had enjoyed my old 8" bookshelf speakers, wishing to just enjoy some music on a modest system again - currently sitting on my desk they're a little too boomy, and there's a little harshness to the tweeters (perhaps the vents cause some audible diffraction issues?). I suppose I could enjoy listening to them if I adjust the bass, add a couple braces to the cabinet, but most of all, forget about listening to speakers and not be critical - just pretend I don't know any better
EDIT: Do you think any of the mid-range capacitors sold at parts express would be adequate for hearing a difference? I wouldn't mind buying some caps and inductors and replicating your crossover switch experiment. I would setup a toggle switch so I could instantly switch back and forth. I am a skeptic, but, I am also willing to try.