That's the thing: People here who are going to buy an aftermarket balanced cable are going to get one from one of the small guys that doesn't have to double the price to allow for dealer margins, which is what I think is going on here.
Why is everyone so happy with those "small guys"? (the Q is mostly rethorical).
According to my calculations they don't double the price, they go 5x and more. Here's a recipe for a 1m silver cable:
1. $80 for the wire. You need 4 wires and if you braid it they have to be longer than 1m. Let's be generous with 4x1.5m=6m of silver wire. A 22-24awg wire costs about $15 per metre.
2. $10 for the teflon isolation. It costs less than $1/m from ebay but let's be generous again.
3. $10 for the cable splitter. That would be a very nice wood splitter, otherwise you can have perfectly good ones for $1-2.
4. $50 for connectors. Again very generous .. a very nice Viablue 3.5mm connector costs about $20 and the Sennheiser headphone connectors are $10 or less per pair.
5. 5$ for solder. Again generous ..a bottle of super silver solder costs about $30 and it's enough for hundreds of cables.
So, the silver cable BOM adds up to $155. That is for a super cable with already *very* generous prices for each part ... and prices that any normal dude can find online, no bulk-discounts included.
Try to buy one of those from those super nice small guys. It costs over $400, most of them are actually in the $500-2000 territory.
Redo that BOM for an OFC cable with $5/m (again very generous) and you get less than $100.. prolly less than $50 for a standard OFC cable. Sold by the "nice" guys for $200+.
Very nice & friendly guys indeed.