why do people feel the need to buy expensive cable

We have some really smart people here on this site ......and ones that been around the '' audiophile hobby '' for a long time as well as ones who have very strong opinions with good intentions to inform as well as impart their observations. Nobody is exactly right here and haven't we all learned, especially with CABLES is that to buy what sounds good to YOU. That is the bottom line .... However, why I am adding my 2 cents now is what has been brought up briefly here and should be reinforced is that the markup on these cables is crazy ....some have touched on that as I have noted, but some of these companies and they are the '' bigger ones '' with the '' bigger names '' have a mark - up of anywhere between 60-80% on their manufacturing cost. I understand that it is free enterprise system .....not my point. What is my point is there are some cable manufacture's who have been at it for a long time whose materials, products to their actual cost charge only 20-40% of markup. But there us the belief and the reason for the OP's statement that the more money the better the cable which is NOT always the case. This came directly from an established and successful audio dealer who has since retired..... who taught me to look for value / performance from a sold company and you will never go wrong - or lose a lot of money when you do go to sell it. Especially with cables !!!! There are some cables out there are well engineered, well designed at a good price that are just as good as the crazy expensive cables in which not matter how much money we have to spend.....get to keep some of that money in our pockets .....and use it elsewhere in the system. Also, one last point ....I am also very leery of any cable company who does not display or won't show a cross - sectional view of their cables construction. " We don't due to competitive reasons " ......hmmmmm okay and sorry but don't believe you and maybe they should add some electrical lights to their cable as that will always make it sound better or some magical dust or even better yet ....big electrical boxes.

If I can hear a big difference and can truly afford it, it's worth it.
If I can't hear much of a difference or can't afford it, it's not worth it.
Is it a good value? Never. That is the nature of Luxury.
I think no-one here is saying luxury cables are value packed. We're saying that in Our system to Our ears there is a big difference, or not.
Some refuse to allow that written-in-stone, logic-based assumptions could be derailed by audio reality. And that's a shame because it is one of the biggest handicaps you can have in this crazy hobby/obsession. Some things that shouldn't work really do matter. The flip side of that is being a sucker. The snake oil is out there and it flies in the face of logic too. The smart audiophile uses his ears and concludes what is right or wrong for His system. None of this is new information. We all know it. What this thread is really about is pride and trash talk. No-one can prove anything.

After 17 years as an audiophile, the key is honestly to try lots of different types of cable at different price points, because the results are so system dependent. In my pretty respectable system with a Levinson amp and preamp, Revel Studios, PS audio PWD, the best sounding interconnects and speaker cables came from Patrick Cullen at Cullen Cable, and thats after trying several $1k+ speaker cables and interconnects. In previous systems over the years, I compared boutique budget cables of those days to high end stuff and the high end stuff won, so you just have to be open minded and trust your ears.

Jimmywho gets it. 🏆

Mmm,seems like the community is coming to an agreement here.