i used to use a very inexpensive brand called Vanco. these were the
cheapest
things i could find and i never had any noise in my systems and couldn't
notice any difference between those and the Pheonix Gold offerings as far
as
sound quality.

Exactly. I'm using some RCA cables from the 1970's on my home stereo and
they sound just fine, although I did have some dirt/corrosion on the left
one that needed to be cleaned off. Once that was done, however, they
sounded exactly the same as the Monster cables I had. (I was trying to
figure out where to use the Monster cables and where to use the old cables,
when I discovered that it didn't seem to matter, I could not hear a
difference.)

-Matt