There's a significant difference between price and quality with cables LOL. Quality base material costs simple as that, yet that doesn't automatically equal a four figure price tag for what amounts to be a wire. I'm lucky being based in SE Asia and have easy access to cable makers. The mark up on such items is obscene at times, I've sourced OEM cables at a fraction of the retail price with a little ground work. Yep your being "hosed" by the manufacturer's plain & simple - Branded 4.4 to MMCX Kimber Kable $55 tops...
The high price branded cables your mostly paying for the fine details, enhanced UV protection, kudos and bespoke jewellery in some cases. Yes some can alter the SQ although it's rather achieved by reducing a trait than enhancing one.
I agree with Lookout57 that quality counts. Cable below was produced by a local professional cable maker with OCC Copper & OCC Silver 64 strand cores 4x4 wired to the same pattern as Hifiman's own cable, it results in a slightly smoother & fuller sound, the driving reason was to switch to 4.4 balanced. The fuller sound is likely due to the higher grade of base materials, increased contact area given the 64 strand wire and 8 cores given the cable is 10X the contact area of the OEM cable. Terminators are simply what the cable maker recommended, nothing fancy. Unfortunately without direct access such a IEM/HP cable would be be very expensive as it would likely pass through many
middlemen before reaching the end users hands.
8 core Kimber; 4 X OCC Copper X 4 OCC Silver, 64 strands per core, 4.4 balanced to duel 3.5 TRS, 6MM+ These guys generally do high end audio interconnects, with IEM & HP cables being a side branch, equally they can produce to your spec up to and including Gold, should you desire...
TLDR: cables quality is everything, pricing entirely a different matter...
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