Many of us, I think, have a limit on what we will pay for cables - either out of necessity or choice. I know to my ears that cables sound different. Finding outsized performance within a reasonable price is my goal. I have about 6000 total in speaker, IC, LAN and power cables in my reference system. Some listeners have more than that in a single power cable. I do though wonder how many listeners who truly have listened to more expensive cables than their current low expenditure truly opt to spend less? If u have never spent more than a couple of hundred bucks on cables it's kinda hard to know whether more expensive cables sound better or not.