To point 4-“aren’t these cables better?”
Any honest installer would give the honest answer: "No."
I have worked in hi-fi sales and something I learned very early on is if you talk someone out of something they want, then whatever you talked them into is on You. If a customer came in asking for my (considerable) expertise, that is very different and I would provide it. If someone asked me if this cable was better than that one, I would answer honestly in my expert opinion. But when someone is buying a $70,000 stereo and they want the ridiculous $900 speaker cables, I would sell them. And it made people happy. And it made me happy because the markup on Audioquest cables is generally around 67%.
The audiophile world is a lot like the wine world. Tell someone the bottle is more expensive and it does taste better. Serve a quality meal on a white table cloth in a dim restaurant with an attentive wait staff and it does taste better than if it's on a paper plate on the floor. That's how our brains work. Sound is a sense like any other and context matters a lot.
The shop I worked at was an Audioquest dealer. One day we did double blind A/B tests of cables like this alongside other quality cables that were maybe a tenth of the price. In our shop and under those circumstances both pros and customers alike couldn't tell the difference. We also did the same thing with the same results testing a $500 stereo amplifier against a $5,000 one.
The fascinating thing to me was when we knew which was which, everyone picked the pricier gear every single time. Even I, who organized and proctored these tests was able to be influenced this way. I could swear up and down the "better" gear sounded better when I knew which was which, but when someone else was proctoring the test and I was blind, then I could not.
I'm not defending Audioquest. They make good speaker cables, but the prices are outrageous. And the digital stuff is laughable. I couldn't write that marketing copy and sleep at night. But I do understand the market. In a way the marketing copy and the price is the value of the product. The mind is a funny thing.
And it made people happy. And it made me happy because the markup on Audioquest cables is generally around 67%.
The fact that wealthy people don't resent the price of expensive things because they can afford expensive things is a fact it took me decades to wrap my head around.
Significant wealth still wants salespeople to solve their problems, however the price of things is not among those problems. They don't mind someone else making money because it has no bearing on what they can do for their children.
More ordinary economic statuses come with many experiences of not being able to afford really nice things either outright or because it would limit what we might do for our children.
---
The other piece of the psychology is the pleasure humans can find in exclusivity/tribalism/etc. Brand identity can form a significant part of this and some people want to wear a Monster Cable dozer cap.
If they are what the client wants, they are better because the client decides what has value.
Part of what wealth pays for is other people’s agreement with their opinions. Telling them they are foolish to believe what they want to believe is not a hill worth dying on.
That’s pretty much true in general. But you do you.