I would not be surprised if cable designers do in fact lack knowledge. There’s one well known cable company that sells a digital 110 ohm cable, terminated in RCAs, which is way off base because SPDIF protocol calls for a 75 ohm cable while a 110 ohm cable is an AES/EBU cable and there you use XLRs .
I had had another cable drop shipped to me direct from the manufacturer that simply did not work- no continuity in the center pin.
Another cable - an XLR, from yet another manufacturer, developed an intermittent short. Upon closer inspection, it was clear the workmanship in connecting the XLR was quite substandard.
I’ve experienced RCAs without any real strain relief eventually leading to a broken connection.
I would rather ther consider the opinion of an EE doing digital work vs someone who buys reels of Mogami or whatever cable, puts on some techflex, gets some heat shrink with a company name printed on it, and does in house terminations, because I’ve come to think many cable companies are no more than just that, just repackages. At least Blue Jeans cables is utterly transparent about that.
