[doggiehowser]

What you are paying for isnt strictly speaking just the cost of the cables.

Even my friend who builds his own cables has realised this.

He's spent months working on prototypes - fine tuning them by hand to get the sound just right.

Modify

Running the cables in

Listen

Make changes

Rinse repeat.

I've seen some of his secret sauce modifications to correct the problems he hears. And they are tedious.

In the end he's gone through a fair bit of money on the prototypes. Not to mention his time.

As to whether you can hear a difference - that's really up to you the listener.

Watch this documentary by Dr David Eagleman. It's amazing how well our brain works. The ear is an active sensor. It's not a passive device like a microphone - and the brain continually tunes it and performs its own filtering. So I can't say for certain if you can hear a difference or not.

Only that I have heard differences and I have paid within reason for cables that I feel are within my budget and with improvements to me.

And it's not always the more expensive cable that wins. I've compared some pricier cables to the ones my friend made and ended up preferring his.