Magical speaker cables - part 1

Pear Anjou speaker cable

I’m sure many have seen advertisements for speaker cables costing thousands of dollars. Some take this very seriously while others consider it to be pseudoscience. 

What should one believe? Here I want to help clarify the concepts.

A climax in the cable dispute may have been reached in 2007 when the skeptic James Randi offered a reward of 1 million dollars if anyone could prove that speaker cables costing $2750 for a pair of 1 meter long cables provided any improvements. He was provoked by the claims of the Pear Anjou cables shown in the image.