Bang for the buck vs. “money no object” cable recommendations

I have the Inakustics 4004 Air Ref cables.  They are very nice.  Bought them on the recommendation of a dealer I trust. Never led me astray.  I have not compared to others.  My feeling is that you need great cables, and you get 98% if what you are going to get with many excellent ones out there.  Chasing that last 2% is expensive.  Same goes for many hi end items.  Synergy of your system and room acoustics are very important.

Ignore ALL recommendations. Cost is no arbiter of sonic quality in any particular system.

Cables are system specific. They interact with the connected components.

see  ieLogical CableSnakeOil and  ieLogical Audiophilia Redux Cable Quest, written nearly 20 years ago. It's always been true.

WireWorld for neutrality.

Mogami microphone cable is excellent. The shield is good and it is easy to separate for termination. The insulation is cross-linked polyester, IIRC, and that is pretty much as good as teflon, but it is easier to bend and safer to work with.

Canare Starquad has even better shielding, but it is hard to separate for termination. It is otherwise similar to Mogami. I use Starquad L-4E6S for line level cabling with ETI plugs in a system with 4 modern Quad ESL's, air bearing TT, Koetsu, etc. It comes in 10 colours for easy coding - no more kludgy labels which come off when you least expect it.

Works for me on a high end system. YMMV

If you're really on a budget, Digikey sells Switchcraft connectors which are almost as good as ETI, but 1/10 the price.