It is interesting to hear folks talking down on the Mogami cable and claiming that replacing it with "insert expensive cable here" is the better choice. Its important to point out that at least Mogami has the "Stones" to publish the specs and measurements of their cable. Using such data, if it were available from both parties, the laymen can then make a determination of why cable A may sound different than cable B and which one may be more true to the original intent.
We all know this will never happen with expensive brand X because they want you to believe that sweet sound your hearing is actually what the original artist intended but in reality its more likely just what the maker of fancy cable wants to believe the original event should have sounded like.
Like most here, I've tried many fancy cables and could buy any one of them I chose to but at some point one has to decide if buying a cable that's a known good for the rest of the real world who do this for a living is also good enough for yourself and your purposes. I think the biggest determining factor in that choice is length of run from point A to B. Only the most care free high rollers are willing to drop triple or quad digit per foot on a 25+ft balanced cable to serve the purpose to hear music.
At this point I will bow out gracefully to these folks and simply live in ignorant bliss with my Mogami's
Good post and I appreciate the reasonable points, and believe I can address some of them.
On measurements, I have measured my cables and published the data but now choose not to do so because I don't believe people will draw accurate conclusions. I'm not sure it takes "stones", if you really wanted to know I think I have the info in a file somewhere, I can say the D4 RCA comes out to 73 ohm characteristic impedance and LCR is fairly balanced with C on the low side. But you can arrive at LCR numbers through a vast array of different geometries. For example, C isn't just C as far as the way it sounds, it depends heavily on the particular geometry of the IC cable. For example, C caused by a shield is far less desirable than C caused by the signal wire's relation to a ground wire in a twisted pair... and C from a counter-rotating spiral where the wires cross at angles instead of remaining parallel to one another is also different from a twisted pair in it's effect. LCR just does't take this into account.
That's just one factor in how a cable sounds and for most home applications it doesn't matter that much. The reason is the cable's total impedance is going to be low because it is relatively short, with some exceptions of course. For a shorter cable, like <15 ft or so for an IC cable, the composition of the conductor matters the most, followed by it's insulation, followed by the RCA plug's composition, then geometry, LCR and other things. Yes, it all matters and it's a little more complicated but this is very close to the way it is. A simple twisted pair of the best wire in the world will beat out a cable with inferior wire 99.999% of the time. That is why I have wire manufactured for my cables, it is the key and what makes my cables what they are.
On knowing what the original artist intended, that's impossible... but I do have a way to be able to determine which cable allows for the best resolution and most accurate tone and timbre. Resolution is pretty easy, female vocals and strings on a good recording, as well as soundstage quality make it easy to determine resolution. Tone and timbre is more subjective but comparisons are more meaningful when you've identified typical flaws and can hear them in the music. There are a myriad of different kinds of distortions added by cables but they are generally warm or harsh sounding. Mogami is warm sounding, which is my preference if you can't get a more neutral sound without harshness. A cheap silver cable is often harsh sounding. These distortions reduce resolution, mainly by truncating harmonic information, which makes tone and timbre less convincing in certain ways that are fairly easy to identify with practice. Of course it is true that a cable must be compared to something else, but it can be done in a systematic way that is repeatable, and progress can be made toward a cable with the most resolution and most realistic timbre.
Finally, it's totally ok if some folks don't care about cables and even prefer a soft sounding copper cable. I know some like an amorphous soundstage, don't want to hear flaws in recordings, are sensitive to certain frequencies, whatever. It's fine. For video, I like a large screen and nice picture so it looks like I might be a videophile but I'm not. I got a middle of the road set for 1/3rd the price of the top end model. I know the top end model is more accurate, has better shadow detail ,etc, and I don't care. I'm not spending the cash and in some ways the slightly exaggerated contrast looks better than the accurate version and you don't miss shadow detail you don't know is there. Am I "wrong"? No, of course not. At least, I don't think so...
EDIT: Also, it's best to avoid long runs of cable. If not, you'll pay both financially and possibly in performance. I tend to build longer cables differently than my standard cables and it's usually more expensive per ft to mitigate the loss of performance and reduce noise.