I really don't understand the controversy surrounding Nick's statement. Simply put--and let's forget about price tags for the moment--a crappy speaker cable can degrade the sound of the Sashas to the point that they sound worse than a Sophia with better cables. I've heard cables over the years, take for instance the early first gen Straight Wire Ribbons speaker cables, that had no low end response. I don't think it's that farfetched to believe that a Sophia plus say Transparent or MIT's top speakers cables could sound better than a Sashas with, to exaggerate things, zip cord or this early gen Straight Wire cable.
As a matter of fact, as Nick is trying to say, cables can as well as any other link in the chain or room, make or break a system. Our systems are only as good as the weakest point. If the preamp is noisy, then one can never experience the system's total transparency no matter how good the rest of the system is. If the room has a bass hump, putting a better cable in will have limited benefit. A top amplifier on carpet sited on carpet will in many cases sound no better than a receiver.
Or to put it in terms that I know Lee can appreciate, the complex system that makes up our body can only move as well as the weakest point in the fascia (or as Gray Cook's seminal book is appropriately titled, Body in Balance). So for a baseball pitcher whose right shoulder hurts when they go into external rotation problem, the problem in many cases is not at the shoulder/glenohumeral joint but a joint far away, for instance an issue with their left glute. In audio, we are looking at an equally complex situation and part of the fun is actually figuring out where the problem in the system lies (source, phono, pre, amp, cables, isolation, AC, room, tubes, etc) and fixing it. Often, as many of us who been in the hobby have found, it's often a Catch 21 situation or the chicken or egg first scenario
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