$500 USB cable

I have had a few currently the Audio Quest Diamond it is very good at the harmonic structure  and tonal balance of the song. I have had the 
Wire World Platinum 2 it had slightly better resolution  at the expense of warmth and and density of image. If you have a warm tube system the Wireworld is better
being more neutral.  The Audio Quest Diamond if you want  a bit more warmth  
and image saturation .

audioman58 makes a very nice comparison, but I would add a little to it. With cables, results vary. If you were to evaluate the AQ and WW cables in your system, you may agree with audioman58's assessment, hear something different, or maybe here no difference at all. All 3 scenario's are completely valid. That's why its so important to try them first.  

Its role is to transfer "digital data", i.e., 0(zero)s and 1s, not "audio signal". As long as your $10 USB cable is structurally solid, it should work as good as the $500 one.

But it doesn't. 
Making things more confusing is that fact that the source outputting the USB signal and the USB output implementation in that source have an effect. So does the amount of voltage required and the quality of the power supply to that source. 
It sure would be simple to bury our heads in the sand and get comfort by muttering "bits is bits" use the $10 USB. In my tests some high price cables like Lightspeed 10G and the AQ Diamond were obviously better, but not by a ton, over Black Cat, AQ Carbon and other "giant killer" medium priced USB cables.

Ironically, by improving the digital source(to a microRendu fed by Synology NAS using CAT6A ethernet cable) and a good quality linear power supply, I can now use an inexpensive(i.e. basically free!) USB connector to the dac and not hear tremendous levels of improvement with expensive USB cables like I always did when connecting Mac Mini output to the same DAC. Cheers,
Spencer