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More for people with too much money and too little sense.

Its a digital signal with error checking and they are using it to send lossy MP3's to an amp. MP3's and high end audio are completely different things.
 
Fun looking at AudioQuest's website with the offers of slightly expensive normal Ethernet cables, the more expensive Pearl line at about $100, and the nutty Diamond line which the article refers to. Pricing seems to have dropped by 1/3 on the very high end to a mere $7200. Nice markup on about $70 worth of silver. Scrappers should be happy in a few years.
 
Kind of reminds me of my first DVP that I purchased back around 2005 or so, and gladly forked out $395 for the thing. It promised 1080i and naturally, as one might expect, it and came without a cable. I had a new 42" Toshiba rear projection TV in the family room at the time, and couldn't wait to play some DVD's from Blockbuster. I needed that cable like now, so I made the rounds and nowhere was it to be found. I finally stumbled into a Best Buy and low and behold, there was a Monster Cable kiosk in the middle of the store. They had the 36" 19-pin square connector HD cable for $149.95. So, I shelled out knowing all the while that I had just been had. There wasn't exactly a line of people behind me either. I haven't bought a Monster cable since.
 
Those are weak tea by comparison. On my "tech for less" clearance category, I can get a 5m ethernet cable for $0.99 new. So this thingummy is apparently 10,000 time more expensive and won't do the job any better.
 
I just bought a $1000 ethernet cable.
But then it came with free installation through my whole house.

Now its time to ritually burn those powerline adapters.
 
Audiophiles are such an easy a target for ridiculousness you almost feel bad pointing it out, but... yeah.

Here's a completely serious review of some NAS servers in which the reviewer claims to *totally* hear significant differences in sound quality from the same NAS fitted with spinning disks vs. SSDs, and also "observes" improved clarity by substituting the switching power supply in the server for a linear one. Also note the claim that using Cat5e ethernet cabling instead of Cat6 results in a "jaw dropping 20 percent decrease in audio quality!". Here's the previous article this one refers to in which the audio qualities of various brands of SSD drives are described in wine tasting-esque terms.

Just remember, though, double-blind testing can never work for audio, so when an audiophile tells you he needs a $10,000 ethernet cable for his MP3s to sound just right there's absolutely no way you'll ever be able to prove them wrong.
 
One of the articles, I think, hits the nail on the head. "They need to feel that they're special." I think that drives a lot of high-end buying. In the case of the audiophile, it runs something like "If I'm willing to spend obscene amounts of money on this stuff, that means that my perception is proportionally greater than the average guy's."

True story. A mutual friend had just cashed out of his Silicon Valley venture and had more money than was good for him. As an avocational flutist, the first thing he did with his booty was to order a platinum flute from Vern Powell. Not gold, which many will argue does produce a somewhat warmer sound than the traditional silver (although there's a bit of a story there), but platinum.

One of the next things he did was to purchase an audio system that came close to the purchase price of a house. He invited a bunch of us over for dinner one evening and was eager to show off both the flute and the audio system. This was the 80s, so audio was still on vinyl discs. He played something from a disc--I don't recall what--but announced it to be someone's flute concerto in D minor (not sure of the key either). After playing the first movement, one of the guests commented that the work in question was not in D minor, but B minor. Our host protested, showing the label information. His guest insisted that the label was wrong. Our host pulled out his flute and--what do you know--it turns out that the record producer had swapped labels between the sides.

So much for feeling "special".
 
I followed a link off that same article and ran into this, which pretty much left me speechless. The crazy-train that is their magic box's "theory of operation" railroads through Psuedoscienceville without even slowing down and highballs right off the cliff into Hobbits-and-Elves Fantasyland. And it's not an anomaly; there's a thriving market for magic talismans that employ the mystical powers of wood to protect your precious audio signals from being disrupted by evil spirits or make any room sound like a concert hall just by pasting $1000 worth of small felt disks on the wall.

I guess when you're dealing with someone who firmly believes that sticking a fuse in a Tesla coil creates an audible "quantum tunneling" effect when said fuse is later stuffed into your amp there really isn't much you can say anymore.
 
Eudimorphodon said:
I followed a link off that same article and ran into this, which pretty much left me speechless. The crazy-train that is their magic box's "theory of operation" railroads through Psuedoscienceville without even slowing down and highballs right off the cliff into Hobbits-and-Elves Fantasyland. And it's not an anomaly; there's a thriving market for magic talismans that employ the mystical powers of wood to protect your precious audio signals from being disrupted by evil spirits or make any room sound like a concert hall just by pasting $1000 worth of small felt disks on the wall.

I guess when you're dealing with someone who firmly believes that sticking a fuse in a Tesla coil creates an audible "quantum tunneling" effect when said fuse is later stuffed into your amp there really isn't much you can say anymore.
Click to expand...

That being said, do you think the aforementioned fuse would sufficiently protect a flux capacitor pulling 1.26 jigawatts.
 
Its like anything else the rich buy more expensive means limited production exotic brands that the less fortunate cannot afford. If you spend your whole life being #1 at whatever you do then you buy the #1 ranked item few other then royalty can afford. This is how rich people end up broke (well that and trying to invest more money then they need to make high returns that eventually go very very bad).
 
*Pfft* A true Audiophile would shake his head in shame at any system still using a flux capacitor; anyone with working ears can tell the difference between that old 80's tech and a modern system using triple-grounded negative-bias turbo-encabulators to dampen any barescent skor motion in the cathermin tube interocitor's proton flux condenser. (Don't forget to bi-wire your intensifier disks to avoid RF interference with your ambifacient lunar waneshaft.)
 
...so what you're telling me is this $50,000 cable may not be worth the mortgage refinance?

My search was actually for trolling this HDMI cable but I had forgotten about that wonderful gem. I do enjoy the reviews though.
 
My take on the above mentioned turboencabulator:


  • "The original machine had a base-plate of prefabulated amulite, surmounted by a malleable logarithmic casing in such a way that the two spurving bearings were in a direct line with the pentametric fan, the latter consisted simply of six hydrocoptic marzelvanes, so fitted to the ambifacient lunar vaneshaft that side fumbling was effectively prevented. The main winding was of the normal lotus-o-delta type placed in panendermic semi-boloid slots in the stator, every seventh conductor being connected by a nonreversible trem'e pipe to the differential girdlespring on the 'up' end of the grammeters."
 
And for comparison, how a $1,500 audiophile AC cord works:

"... the “stuff” developed by Bybee contains “crystal-like” materials that are activated by electromagnetism and have the uncanny ability to affect the alignment of protons in specific proximal atoms. Based on this ‘old fashioned’ model of the atom, such an alignment results in the nucleus having the properties of a bar magnet. This in turn results in an “easier” (more stable) path for EMF and therefore a reduction of the deleterious effects of capacitive and inductive reactance as well as molecular noise. If the components of an unaligned nucleus, protons and neutrons, churn about producing continuously fluctuating magnetic poles, it is easy to conceive that an array of fixed-pole nuclei will provide a consistent and predictable path for the passage of charged particles, as well as exerting a profound influence on the behavior of electrons in the “orbit” of the nucleus..."
Click to expand...
 
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