@ben_yanes: Keep in mind that other factors influence how “heavy” or “light” a handle will feel on a cable stack or machine, such as other pulleys that are not on the weight stack, levers, their lengths, and their motion, and how your bones, joints, and muscles relate to those levers and the change in their position. You’ll also notice in the cable stack with “one thing” coming off of it that the stack itself moves a much larger distance compared to the one with pulleys on it. Moving a larger distance will contribute substantially to how “heavy” a stack feels because inertial effects (acceleration and deceleration) will be magnified significantly in any object moving a larger distance. I personally prefer to use cable stacks that have one or 2 pulleys attached to the stack when I can, because they feel a lot smoother and allow for generally easier coaching/execution.