whats the very best sounding cables for realistic money

So, as a designer of cables for many decades where do you stand on the dodgy subject of is there or is there not such a thing as directionality? If you don't wish to answer I'll understand.

Yes there is directionality depending on the design, my cables are directional because of the elements within the cable to stabilize the magnetic wave form. More basic designs like generic cables are not directional unless there is a dedicated shield that would be attached to ground on one side.

Check out 'Blue Jeans' cables. At about 30.00 they are very cheap. These replace MIT 770s, Audioquest Lapis, Monster and more. They are very well balanced and dynamic and transparent!!

for AC power bottle head cord or better a Topaz isolator

for DC power to a USB DAC, use an isolator/regen device and a LPS for best results (which may be zero depending on your DAC etc.) - wind up a DC cord using a star-quad layout or buy from Ghent

for speakers, use short runs with mono-blocks and try various cheap cables until you like the effects of complex impedance changes

for ICs, use balanced

all the above are inexpensive and effective - shills, fan-boys and fraudsters will try to sell you ineffective things for thousands

I'm late in responding, but I have built @williewonka 's designs that he posted and they are amazing cables for my system. I've made helix ICs, PCs and SCs. You can choose your own conductor, which is nice. Tailoring your cables to your system and desired sound is an amazing freedom to have. I love silver, so have used it throughout my cables, but you could go copper with gold or silver or rhodium.. the sky's the limit. 

To my ears, the cables I've built are very quiet, very detailed and neutral.

I love building stuff, but if you've never built cables before, these aren't too difficult to make.