"You can even make cabling yourself that rivals some of the best stuff out there for a fraction of the cost": As I stated somewhere else in this Saloon, I've made stereo interconnects with less than $20 worth of materials that were nearly indistinguishable from Cardas $700 stuff, at least in the testing conditions I listened under. All you need is an appropriate length of 4-conductor phone cord, a knife to cut off the outer insulation, a stripper of the simplest type (or just the knife again) to cut off the insulation on each individual conductor, 4 of the cheapest RS phono plugs, the cheapest pencil tip soldering iron, solder, and about a half hour's time. The only reason I don't use the home-made stuff for all the audio interconnects in my system except the XLRs from the 990 to the amplifiers is that I had a bunch of other interconnects already.
BTW, could one make a good video component cable from 6-conductor phone wire and 3 pairs of phone plugs in the same way? Vistas of economy are opening up here . . .