To start with, Speaker cable :
In my opinion the special thick cable is better than average.
At some point I wanted new speakers, but a friend of mine had Monster Cable, I asked if I could try it out and ended up buying good cable in stead of new speakers, the cable improved the sound that much especially in the high and low frequencies. (and no I wasn't using telephone wire before
)
I don't concider myself a audiophile I just like my music good quality at low costs.
That's why I don't mind downloading high bitrate MP3 alltough I know the original sounds better.
When I get the choice .flac or .mp3 I go for the .flac of course.
Hoever....My car MP3 player won't play flac.
I don't know enough of the technical specs of CD's but on average the quality is good enough for me.
I did hoever once bought a CD by Talk Talk - Laughing Stock, I did have the music on tape, taken from a LP but the tape sounded better "warmer" than the CD.
But this was the only time I came across this.
I concidered it merely to be a poorly produced CD rather than my tapedeck outperforming my CD player