Performance and price do not necessarily go hand in hand when it comes to audio cabling, IMO.
There are a few one-man operations that provide excellent products that are competitive with cabling costing much, much more. Additionally, you can usually try their cables for 30-60 days before you commit to buy.
If your choice is to buy one expensive cable versus a complete set of lower cost, but excellent cables, I might recommend you at least try a complete set of the lower cost cables to hear what they do in your system.
I have recently had good experiences with Paul at Clear Day Cables, and Mike at Morrow Audio. There are other options as well that are discussed often in the threads.
As far as the "top tier", well known expensive brands of cables, I personally see no reason to buy new unless you're receiving a 50% discount or close to it. The opportunities to buy used examples are too common to have to pay anything approaching retail.
There are a few one-man operations that provide excellent products that are competitive with cabling costing much, much more. Additionally, you can usually try their cables for 30-60 days before you commit to buy.
If your choice is to buy one expensive cable versus a complete set of lower cost, but excellent cables, I might recommend you at least try a complete set of the lower cost cables to hear what they do in your system.
I have recently had good experiences with Paul at Clear Day Cables, and Mike at Morrow Audio. There are other options as well that are discussed often in the threads.
As far as the "top tier", well known expensive brands of cables, I personally see no reason to buy new unless you're receiving a 50% discount or close to it. The opportunities to buy used examples are too common to have to pay anything approaching retail.

