My 184>Orchid>722 rig has a new sticker price of about $5400. That's not a ridiculous figure. It's not the most expensive rig in a tapers section. I have a V2, but I'm certainly not scared to run without it if I need a small, lightweight rig for the night. Most other cables on par (sonically) with The Orchid have an OD of at least 7 mm. For me, it's worth a premium to have an audiophile cable the size of a spaghetti noodle. YMMV. There isn't much reason to invest into audiophile cables for your taping rig without having some sort of decent playback system. Regardless, The Orchid is one of the few cables out there small enough to handle the mini-xlr connectors and still have proper shielding and durability.
van den Hul manufactures all of its wire. You can't buy it on the bulk market like Canare and Belden. They have distribution in 68 countries around the world. At CES, A.J van den Hul was bragging about their top end silver cable getting orders in China. He said they tried to knock it off and couldn't. Their 16 amp a/c power cord has been knocked off relentlessly (in looks, not performance). He started telling us about all the vdH knockoffs that come out of China and mentioned a power cord. He pulled one out and it was the very cord we bought on Audiogone. Somebody was selling fake Mainsstream Hybrid a/c cords for $125...it's a $450 a/c cord, and we bought one. They claimed you could buy a better cable at Home Depot. It all made sense because the cord made amps sound bright and thin. It didn't work on anything. We ordered an authentic Mainsstream Hybrid a/c cord and there simply was no comparison. We've sold seven of those cables to various folks who had originally bought the fake. The fakes come up for sale on the Gone from time to time. The authentic a/c cords don't. They are that good.
Chris
http://www.vandenhul.com/artpap/artpap.htm - reviews and articles A.J. van den Hul has written regarding phono, cables, hi-fi and other relevant topics.
http://www.vandenhul.nl/artpap/pro-apps.htm