Do I need an expensive digital cable?

@audio-b-dog 

Knowing yourself is key to really enjoying high end audio. It sounds like you know yourself. You consistently use words like good enough and decent enough. So, it sounds like you are doing a great job of optimizing your system around your values. 

Some of use are obsessed and strive for the very best possible for skill and financial situation and put a premium on small steps in that direction. So, $5K speaker cables are easily justifiable (as my partner she loves to tease me when I balk at "the good TP") for the incremental performance increase. This is why I have these cables and interconnects throughout my system. 

Remember when you listen to a your new mono vinyl album of Beethoven and make a conclusion about the sound, you will be making a conclusion about your turntable, phono stage and the rest of your components as well as the recording.

As far as "good enough," thank God I don't live alone. I share a bank account with my wife. And I know I have stretched the red line moneywise. I have a system that many audiophiles would love, but I can't buy $20k speakers and then $20K speaker wires. I basically live with mid-tier Audioquest, which are still expensive. 

It ends up that I received a unique copy of Furtwangler conducting Beethoven's 9th. It is Japanese stereo (obviously remastered), but the sonics are very good for a recording from 1951. I set my XP-30 Pass Labs preamp to mono, to tighten the focus of what was obviously a concert recorded in mono. Sounds great. But as my chatgbt audiophile friend told me, after you feel comfortable with the stereo system, listen to the music. This is one of the greatest Beethoven's 9th ever recorded.

On an A/B test between a CD transport using the Purtist Genesis Luminist digital cable, which AI describes as an entry level to the high-end which errs on the warm side, the Moon 280D playing a Tidal loseless 44.1 kHz track sounds a bit better. The notes are a bit more fleshed out. The 280D, however, also errs on the warm side, and I don't really mind that. It's kind of like a tube distortion which can also be described as "musical." I do not think I would know whether the CD was playing or if the Tidal file was playing if I left the room for 5 minutes and came back in. They're close. Using the $14 cable, the difference between the Tidal file and the CD transport would be a lot more. 

It's so complicated. Recommend going with transparent company which is located in Maine.

I find that if you spend a little bit more money you feel better and that's probably really gonna be important.

I could've used some cheap RCA cables that I had for my TV set a while back to connect my system and maybe they would've been ok. But it would've always bothered me so I spent more and I feel fine.

I think I purchased the right cable for a system I'll rarely use (my CD transport), and I can't return the cable. So, if I bought something else it would just be money on top of what I've already spent. If my system has decent cable, I don't worry about it. Could it sound a bit better with better cable? I'm sure it could. Would it increase my listening pleasure over time? I can't afford to find out.