As a result of its superior handling of EMI, star quad is well known in the industry as a good cable construction to use in demanding environments. And that reputation is based in science; the Canare document, for example, contains lots of claims which can be tested objectively, and all those claims are rooted in physics-based (reality-based) mechanisms.
What set me off about the article, though, is that the author made a number of claims like, “Star quad cables can also improve sound quality. Most report clearer highs, less mud in the mid-lows, and a lift of the “haze” associated with previous mixes. Individual channels combine better, take EQ better, and compress better.” Those comments cross a line into faith-based audio, for a number of reasons. First, terms like “mud” and “haze” do not have formal technical definitions; in fact, if you asked 10 audio engineers to define those terms, you’d probably come up with 12 definitions. Secondly, the test procedure described by the author (listening to a change in cables while on a touring show in 1997) was not “blind", meaning it was subject to bias--those listening could have been hoping to see a certain result, even subconsciously, and that could have affected the results. Finally--and probably most importantly--the experiment was not set up to test only one variable at a time. One of the most interesting things about live sound is that a multitude of things, from temperature and humidity to blood-alcohol level of the performers, can affect quality (see the whole series I wrote about this here). So, it's completely plausible that the author heard an improvement in the show he was mixing, but his methodology does not give me confidence in his claims that the improvements could be attributed to star quad cable.
You don't need sophisticated test equipment or a PhD to do good experiments based in the scientific method. I don’t even need to know how a cable works to be able to make an accurate, objective judgment about its quality. However, because bias is always possible for any number of reasons (equipment reputation, cost, peer pressure, etc), to do a worthwhile test, you have to do as much as possible to make sure that the playing field is completely fair, and that you are testing for only one variable. The variable in this test is the use of star quad or conventionally constructed twisted pair mic cable; we did all that we could think of to keep everything else the same as much as possible. We specifically did not test for EMI rejection, since that area is already well tested and documented. Instead, we were testing to see if we could hear any other difference in sound quality brought on by the star-quad cable. And whatever the result, I now own a nice pair of star-quad cables I can use when I want to ensure maximum noise rejection!
My colleague Dr. David B. Smith has a Yamaha Disklavier, a modern, MIDI-controlled, player piano. We used this acoustic sound source because its performance is extremely consistent, and precisely repeatable to a very high standard:
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