i have a home studio setup and i am looking for some high-quality audio
cables. markertek seems pretty good, but i don't have a lot of
experience in this area.

the cables i'm using right now i soldered myself, but the system is
noisy. i'm begining to think i'm not quite as adept at soldering as i
once thought.

where do you guys go for professional-grade audio cables for "studio"
recording?

I go to Jim Sander of Integrated Cable Assembly, however he's just left on a
two-month job wiring the House Of Commons Foreign Affairs facility in Ottawa
(he wired the House Of Commons itself too). He's just finished looming my
24-channel snake for live recording, all individual high-grade cables
instead of standard multicore, loomed into a patchbay with 24 more short
cables continuing on to recording interfaces, all secured to the walls of
the rack case. Each cable is exactly the length it should be to reach the
appropriate jacks, including the console end (each cable is 1 1/4" longer
than the previous one, the width of each strip), very rugged and tidy.

I needed excellent cable since I'm recording out the inserts (unbalanced)
and the best stress relief possible for repeated install and removal. He
really came through, and the cost wasn't that much more than a set of
respectable over-the-counter snakes.