I refer to chapter 4 in the AES "paper":
4 ELECTRICAL CHARACTERIZATION
If two audio configurations are audibly distinguishable, then physical differences between their signals must necessarily exist.
OK, I did interpret the word
physical as meaning
electrical. Can't hide the fact that I'm an EE ...
However, measuring them and interpreting their relevance for audio performance is challenging because of the difficulties in matching the extraordinary capabilities of the ear, and because of our incomplete understanding of auditory neurophysiology. For example, the ear has a 120 dB dynamic range and the sensitivity to detect a cochlear basilar-membrane amplitude of ~1 pm [39]–[41]. It was not the primary goal of the present work to pinpoint the exact physical reason/s for why the interconnects sound different, just that they do. Nevertheless, in the electrical measurements presented below, the sonically superior higher-end interconnect did perform better in all of these measurements.
And this is the stupid part. Instead of measuring the audio signal with a microphone it would have been sufficient to measure the electrical signal at the end of the cable. Then you know the real difference and can calculate how much difference that is in SPL at the listening position.