I haven't been able to figure out a difference between the two other than the fancy L shaped plugs, whiich do protect the cable somewhat from flexing/breaking.
The older style S&S cables were like the 10bars, where the cable comes straight out of the plug. There is a lot of stress on the cable at that flex point, and I've had them break. You can buy a little tiny allen wrench to unscrew the plug and re-attach it to the new end of the cable. (After cleaning up the break of course.)
If the L-shaped plug on the new S&S cable breaks, I'm not sure there is a way to re-attach it. (There may be, but I haven't looked closely enough to know. Someone else might be able to assist on that topic.)
For my money, I'd get the cheap cable and plugs plus the tiny allen wrench so I could fix things that broke. After that, my opinion is fiber optic cable is fiber optic cable... and a TOS stereo cable is just as good as any other. You're paying $50 to $70 for those little proprietary plugs that go on either end (and there are DIY equivalents you can get from a hardware store if you want to).
