Overpriced Audio Cables

[Mistafishman]

Just getting into the world of HiFi and am learning quickly how expensive it is but one thing surprises me more than anything, premium cables cost way too much. I've seen cables up in the thousands of dollars. I was curious how far they would go and sure enough, a company named Siltech has a 3 meter interconnect cable going for $66,000.00!!!! ("Bi-Wire" version is an extra $5k) Why??? Personally the most I would ever pay for a cable is ~$100 and it would be more for something more useful like a very long PCI-e cable and that's even pushing it. I understand that premium cables use very good materials and use shielding to reduce noise but even the millionaires who would look at equipment like this, how would they justify a $66k cable over a $1k cable? 

On the bright side, the site listed below would give you 7% off.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

Maybe not this cable in specific due to the insane price-point, but I feel a cable like this could potentially be a great "HOLY SH!T" video.  (Reminds me of the $1000 HDMI video)

https://www.thecableco.com/Product/Siltech-Emperor-Double-Crown

[DrowningFish]

2 minutes ago, Mistafishman said:

Why???

I personal never would spend much on premium cables, but I do see its place. I know from my tech work in theater that some places would not take any risk with a wire. Think about it, if you are running a large scale show that costs thousands of dollars a night, having these high quality wires permanently in the theater is not a half bad idea. 

 

I do think that this is not marketed to the individual. I am not an expert myself so I could only guess why. 

[Oshino Shinobu]

The high end audio market is full of snake oil products. 

 

At least it's somewhat more legitimate than the overpriced HDMI and other digital cables, as the quality of audio cables can actually make a difference, just that manufacturers take it too far and sell people stuff that doesn't make any perceivable difference. 

 

As a whole, the high end audio market is full of subjective views presented as fact and "better" (more expensive) hardware getting good reviews because of a placebo affect. If you're listening for an improvement, you're quite likely to find one if it's supposed to be better. Measuring audio quality is so unreliable and non-standardised that it's hard to actually tell what's good and what's just overpriced. There's also a lot of "that's shit" kind of attitudes in the audio market, you even see it fairly often on the audio subforum here on the LTT forums. 

[Drak3]

Stupid is as stupid does. And enthusiasts can be pretty god damn stupid at times.

[DrowningFish]

2 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

As a whole, the high end audio market is full of subjective views presented as fact and "better"

I totally see that. I can't tell a difference in audio quality around $150ish. But I can see audio cables needing to be more reliable. I have had a few buggy aux cords. 

[Ithanul]

40 minutes ago, Mistafishman said:

Just getting into the world of HiFi and am learning quickly how expensive it is but one thing surprises me more than anything, premium cables cost way too much. I've seen cables up in the thousands of dollars. I was curious how far they would go and sure enough, a company named Siltech has a 3 meter interconnect cable going for $66,000.00!!!! ("Bi-Wire" version is an extra $5k) Why???

Yeah, that a bit to much for a cable or bi-wire cable.  Good grief, the set I have was no where near that cost (then again, no way was I paying several hundred for some darn wire). 

[seduce_me]

Low hanging fruit.

[Spuriae]

It's analog, and everything in analog can be improved ever-so-slightly at the cost of tons of extra money. If an amplifier has a PSRR or -50db and wall power has THD of -30db, then plugging it into a $5,000 power regenerator will theoretically reduce noise by an audible amount (if you listen long enough). And if the power regenerator has a PSRR of -50db, you can further improve performance by putting another $5,000 power regenerator in front of that... and so on. The problem comes when the differences become too small to measure; at that point there are lots of people begin to associate more cost with more performance, and the market breaks down as simply raising the prices on cheap (or useless) things becomes a way to attract customers.

 

There's a lot of snake oil out there. There are also plenty of voodoo-looking products that theoretically provide some sort of slight improvement (sometimes even measurable); Shunyata is probably the best example of this. Personally I don't care enough to pay that much for vanishingly tiny improvements.

 

Audio cables can make differences. Some things like OCC metal use should provide an objective improvement over standard cables (it's less clear-cut how audible that improvement is to be worth having). Dielectric constants, cables acting as filters (after all, they do have inductance and impedance...) and other things can color the sound, but are more up to personal preference (if again they're audible at all). You can spend thousands chasing theoretically present improvements (Tara Labs is a good example of combining all the things that theoretically provide tiny improvements that make physical sense for silly high prices), or you can decide that different cables sound different but not necessarily better beyond a certain point. Or you can decide the differences aren't worth caring about, which is fine too.

 

 

[Ahoy Hoy]

For that price I will make you any cable you want and personally deliver it to do your door, next day delivery.