The Cable Company advice?

@tcbrinkley 

I’ve had good luck with The Cable Co. I’d try them again and see if you get a different rep. My experience has been very positive. I explain what I’m after and what my budget is and the result is 3-5 products in the range I’ve asked for and then I just listen & listen…

Here’s another idea, maybe in parallel, as an experiment. Ask ChatGPT. Write a good prompt including as much detail about your system as you can. See what comes back. 

TCC will push Synergistic and Shunyata in that price range. But they will eventually include other brands into the conversation. The SR cables I tried I never liked despite their tuning devices really making a difference (gold bullet, silver bullet). Never got these to sound natural in my system. Your results may vary. 
I’ve had both good and bad experience with TCC. Their system of assigning a salesperson to a customer or customer to the sales person, whichever way you want to approach it, doesn’t really work too well. If and when you get in touch with your sales rep you can either borrow or purchase. If borrowing whatever the fee you paid excluding shipping will be credited to your purchase. You will also get frequent flyer discount. I’ve had to call TCC multiple times to place an order with no one calling me back. I would’ve bought the crap elsewhere except they had my credit from lending library that I wanted to use up. 

Overall would I recommend them? No. Not anymore. And I’ve neen using them for close to 20 years. As @lalitk pointed out, find a dealer that carries multiple brands who can let you try cables at home and steer you in a right direction. Or buy used, try and flip if not good. 

@audphile1 Why do you say that?

Because Bingo! those are the brands they suggested, lol.

Pushing SR and Shunyata implies they are either overall best performers in that price range or (cynically) have the highest profit margins. 

Shunyata makes very nice cables and power conditioners. Synergistic is excellent as well I’m sure for some systems but it’s just not my cup of tea. I am sure the profit margin on both brands makes it a top recommendation for them. 
My suggestion would be to do your research and compile a list of cables you’d want to try. Then just borrow the cables from their landing library. As a resource to get the benefits of being able to test drive the cables in your system TCC is hard to beat. Their customer service is another story. And quiet frankly with the lending library policy where you pay to try cables, there should be no obligations. You can use your credit any time to buy anything from them. In example I used my credit to buy Solid Steel amp stands there. 


 

I bought one $350 interconnect that they recommended and didn't like it.  I tried to get a recommendation from them on another cable and the guy was an arrogant jerk.  Maybe he had a bad day.

You might try Fidelium speaker cables from Silversmith Audio.  He does 30 day free trials. You just pay shipping.  An 8 foot pair is $1395. I really like mine.