One almost has to have training like yours to evaluate some of the claims made...well, I guess audio is not the only area frought with snake oilsmanship. 

I'd been believing (much of) the hype, but I'm glad I was steered to some skeptical information via some of the forums. I might have spent $1k on speaker cables, and I think I'm glad I didn't. 

Maybe the skeptics are too disbelieving, but it was sobering to read assertions that many fancy claims (about fancy speaker cables) amount to solutions for problems that are inaudible, if they exist at all, in home audio applications. 

On the other hand, serious minded, sober-type people (like you, I think) report being able to hear differences. This holds more water for me than, say, you know the type who rave in the most flamboyant of vague terminology: "Like a veil that was not just lifted, it was swept away from right to left on an upward diagonal slope, revealing melifluous highs, lemon yellows, sphincter-puckering bass, and timbers so tonally balanced it would make a pirate hop for joy on his wooden leg." You know  what I mean. 

It calls something to mind. When I upgraded my stereo over the past year, the overall impact, I think, was quite huge, yet some things that are obvious are also hard to isolate and point out. Even harder, since changes were made, more or less, one component at a time. 

I suppose if I set up the old equipment as it was last November, and made side by side comparisons it'd be easier to make note of some specifics. But as things stand, I can really only say "Wow, big difference in the new gear -- don't ask me to tell you in what ways, though."