I agree with your expectation that higher price means higher quality but too often in this business it just means better snake oil. Fans of audio all over the world want the best they can afford and the companies take advantage of that need. I would buy the cheaper cables and LISTEN to the system to hear if I could detect any difference between the XLR cables and the RCA cables and if I didn't I would say the XLR cables are just fine and I saved a bunch of green. I can't tell you if it made a differnce in my system because I changed everything at the same time I went to the XLR cables. I certainly did not hear a difference in sound which was detrimental. Spending $60 on a set of cables is pretty cheap compared to the alternatives.