Here's the technically uninformed opinion of a lifelong owner of AV equipment who's set up a lot of stuff in a lot of places (me!). Based on experience, not education -

HDMI cables carry digital signals. Digital anything is binary - either it's there or it's not. A digital video signal that's incomplete will shudder, have pixellations, will stop to cache, or stop altogether. A disturbed digital audio signal will have sonic equivalents - will shudder, have gaps, or stop.

I grew up in an analog world, as most other people aged 40+ did. An analog signal path can add or subtract what's being transmitted. Not so digital. But even a digital "system" may have analog parts- wires running to speakers from an amplifier are an example. For speaker wires, use large gauge (smaller number) wire.

Typical problems of HDMI cables are breaks at the connectors. So if it's working, it's fine.

I buy cheap ones too, they work as well as ones costing 10 times as much. Either the complete signal is transmitted or it's not, when it's not, there's no ambiguity. Then the task is to find out why.

I’ve always bought the cheapest HDMI cables I could find too and never have had a problem.

I seem to recall that HDMI comes in various “flavors,” kind of like USB. I have no idea if a cable rated for HDMI x will have issues with HDMI y.

Here's a good article with more detail, for anyone who's interested:

Why all HDMI cables are the same, CNET

I use my cheap HDMI cables to connect the 4k video on my laptop to my 4k TV with no problems. However, if it got a little slow, like when playing some games (which I don't do) or watching 4k videos, I wouldn't notice it.

Standard-speed cables are rated to carry up to 1080i. Many standard-speed cables can probably handle 1080p, they're just not rated for it. High-speed cables can do well beyond 1080p (up to 4K, so you don't need "4K HDMI cables"), including 3D. ... Any high-speed cable should work with 3D and Audio Return Channel (ARC).

And what is ARC used for? And, how does it differ from eARC? HDMI1 on the TV is marked ARC, but no other HDMI ports on any apparatus of mine is.

ARC HDMI allows for two-way traffic in situation with devices that can make use of that.

There's no such thing as "standard speed" or "high speed cables", it's marketing hype and baloney. Wires of adequate gauge for the distance covered and with secure and proper connections carry whatever digital signals are sent to them.

I am primarily interested in any limitations to carrying multichannel (surround) audio data in either PCM or DSD format.