Instrument cable has capacitance that interacts with a pickup's inductance, and without that inductance, you can't make a graph showing how responses differ. The color the cable imparts will vary with inductance. I tend to like low capacitance cables so I can add in coloration through capacitors at the bass, but many are pretty happy getting substantial coloration from the cable and wouldn't want to have additional extension anyways. What is important is that the cable has sufficient shielding and doesn't develop handling noise
It is true that cables effect your sound and it is the cable capacitance that is the major source of those sound changes. Since cable is so much capacitance per foot, you can easily see that cable LENGTH is also one major source of tone changes. I think everyone pretty much knows this. And we are talking passive basses here. Active cable drivers tend to negate the effects of cable capacitance.
In the past I have done quite a bit of experimenting with low capacitance cables. That seems a great idea because it lets you use a much longer cable before you start to affect the tone as much as you would with some cheap cable. But all my experiences were bad! I found that low capacitance cable tends for some reason to be MUCH more microphonic (giving cable handling noise) than say standard rubber cable. They also are often stiffer too. Eventually I pretty much came to the conclusion that the best overall cable to use conveniently is nice plain old rubber covered cable. Flexible. Little noise.
The main thing about expensive cables is how well the plugs are attached. It's probably worth some extra bux to have the ends put on really well. Broken wires at the plug ends are a rather standard feature of guitar cables. Especially the cheaper ones.
