Best XLRs under $500 a pair

A little over your price point, but great cable. Shadow 2 is a pure silver cable at the middle of Dynamique Audio line. I own both the Shadow 2 and Zenith 2 and I'd say the Shadow performs above 80% of the top of the line.

Look into Acoustic Zen Matrix Reference II and Audience AU24 used close to your price range. You got other good suggestions here as well. 
Throw a dart for the choice between the Benchmark, Mogami Gold(similar star quad design) and Belden 1800f all with neutrik connectors. 

Kimber Kable Hero.

Mogami Gold it's probably the best for the price it's not very expensive. XLR cables don't get much better the more you spend. Recording studios use mogami. 

@bobbyloans +1 on Audio Envy excellent value and price performance.  I recently replaced they Audio Envy in my main system with Morrow Audio and extremely pleased with the detail and punch.  Morrow has a line of cables that cost more as you go up the chain.  They also offer a reasonable exchange and investment protection should you replace a lower model cable with a higher model

For what is worth, Steely Dan is some of my favorite go to reference material.  I get a monthly report from Tidal that shows how much Tidal paid to each artist based on my streaming usage

Steely Dan is nearly always in the top 5 

Happy listening🙃