I haven't done my own dishes in a year -- does that tell you anything...?
Actually, not my area of expertise, so I prefer having them made properly.
For DJ stuff, I use off the shelf manufactured by decent machines -- for my tube stuff, I get the good ones made by better machines, and properly terminated by someone who hand writes their name and phone number on each cable
yes. We make some--we buy some. Depends on what we need and what's available. Can go either way. Not so much a budget or hobby issue as getting what we need in the quality we need in the time we need.
By making your own you get exactly the length and type of connectors you need The vast majority of connectors no longer require soldering and take less than three minutes an end to put together (except for those friggin NL8FX connectors you may as well figure about 10 minutes per end with those things!
I make my own but only because I have tons of connectors that I had purchased awhile back. If I didn't and just wanted a cable to connect on the fly I would buy readymade. But like Thunder stated, you can't beat custom lengths especially when creating harnessing in a rack/case.
I always bought mine.
Although I have made a few specialty cables that were just too expensive at the local music store. (I refuse to pay $25 for a 6-inch adaptor cable)
My soldering skills are not all that great, and some of the solderless ends are a little too bulky for my taste.
So I BUY them when I can, MAKE them when I have to.