Absolutely. Many poor decisions made on initially impressive kit whereas sometimes initially unimpressive stuff is the stuff which you just need to get used to.
And yet while (and I mentioned this in an earlier post) that is generally true, I have also been in studios where money was thrown at power leads and interconnects.
I believe both Niel Yong and Kate Bush take the recording process serious to an audiophile level.
It’s not common. But it’s very far from gold dust rare too.
A lot of their cables need to be custom made too. When I made up some Mogami subwoofer leads, the material cost was probably $30. But the time taken to make them and the cost of an experienced engineer (me in this case) would put the price in at a couple hundred $$. And then if I was selling them I’d have a 100% markup and the retailer would then have their additional 20-40% markup and suddenly this $30 interconnect is $700. And off the shelf high end cables have a similar costing history. $5 cheapo interconnects cost pennies in parts. But $1000 interconnects still only move that into dollars.
My point is, a lot of the seemingly cheap as chips mic cables and guitar leads etc on the studio floor or coiled on the walls is very decent cable from Mogami stock etc. and made up by experienced studio techs who cost proper money to employ.
And things that are a bit more esoteric for audiophiles like dedicated circuits on balanced power supplies are almost a given for many studios.
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I don’t believe there’s any public evidence Neil Young uses anything resembling audiophile cables or power leads when recording. His track record on recording quality, his views on digital etc. might politely be described as erratic and inconsistent.
Friend of mine did sound on his last but two British gigs and got into all manner of trouble because she disposed of cabling that appeared to have been used live for about half a century and was very plainly outright dangerous. She had explain and then threaten them with PAT testing to get certain people to accept that the stuff needed to go.
You could plausibly make the same statement about his songwriting 
I do love his music though. He’s one of the all-time greats. Cables or no cables.
Indeed. There are Neil albums to be loved and Neil albums which are inexplicable. Little logic to the ones we love either.
I was always bemused by people holding up his expertise on all things audio quality and then realising that in interviews he repeatedly confused frequency and dynamic ranges and this was before he started having strokes.
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