Cheap generic vs expensive name brand optical cables?

They either work or they don’t.

They either work or they don’t.

Exactly! They are digital, after all. You don’t need high-end cables to transfer digital signal for short distances. Just look inside your computer: your audio travels there on those tiny metal strips on printed circuit board and still audio quality is pristine. There’s no need for “high-end” cables on digital audio.

If you experience “pulsating clicks”, it’s usually sync problem or sample rate mismatch.

[quote[I also can’t say the audio quality of this light pipe adat between 2 Aardvark Aark 24 cards (24 bit) were at all any better than using analog audio with not too expensive cables…?[/quote]
You shouldn’t hear difference between analog and digital connection … as long as you have at least medium-grade D/A and A/D converters and you analog cable is either short or high quality.