My experience has been that I can get various very inexpensive interconnects that all sound indistinguishable. Fortunately I subjectively find that sound to be good, and I enjoy the consistency, dependability and readily available supply. I’ve tried more expensive cables that struck me as possibly sounding different, but never in a way that evoked a clear preference.
For those who do perceive and prefer the unique sounds of certain cables, perhaps that can be seen as an unfortunate expense. Or, a fun and rewarding avenue for exploration.
I don’t see much review of cheaper cables. You’d think there’d actually be a lot more variation between inexpensive cables, resulting in a lot of very interesting perceptions to report on, with more expensive cables becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish from one another on account of their approaching perfection.
I should point out that I have heard some degradation in signal quality from running single ended interconnects that were very long, and from attempting to use in-line attenuators between my DAC and pre-amp. Both of these introduced well understood and easily measurable problems. I am kind of curious to know if a 30 foot expensive single ended interconnect could sound noticeably better to me than a standard cheapy 30 footer. It seems if it is well shielded and low enough in any form of impedance, it should work.