I don’t care if some or even most audiophile products are snake oil. I trust my ears.

I don’t care if a lot of audiophile products are overpriced. I have a budget.

I don’t care if a lot of audiophile products are marketed as status symbols or eye candy. I am interested in sound quality and, when I find it, a high bang for the buck.

I don’t care if there is a market for stratospherically priced audio equipment in which bang for the buck, or even sound quality, is irrelevant. I had a friend who asked me 40 years or so ago to help her buy a stereo. She was awash in dough and could afford all but the most highly priced components. As we were driving to the first audio store we visited, she told me she wanted a really good stereo, “you know, one that looks really sexy.” She spent a lot of money, and got just what she wanted, a sexy looking system that I thought sounded mediocre. Her criteria were different from mine, but totally valid. I don’t see any reason why I should suffer the fact that her criteria are different from mine. And, I don’t see any reason why any of us on this forum should suffer that that market exists.

It you can afford it and you value for whatever reason its contribution to your quality of of life, knock yourself out: buy the $90k PC. It’s presence in the market and the presence of consumers who will buy it bears no implications for me. I’m neither embarrassed nor humiliated by it.

I know some of you think this point ridiculous, but what offends me about Mr Too Much Dough spending $90K on a power cord is that it seems obscene when so many of our neighbors and compatriots can’t feed their families today.  I am disturbed by the unbridled capitalist impulses that drive our culture today and advocate every day for a more equitable distribution of resources. But, as long as we live under the current rules and incentives, let the ultra rich spend their money as they will, as long as they don’t hurt anyone in the process.

I recognize that the OP is making the case that the marketing and purchase of a $90,000 power cord does hurt us, the audiophile community, by perpetuating an image of the audiophile as an audiofool. I simply do not agree.

@nmolnar great pun!

@devinplombier I agree generally with your point about the lack of receptivity, even tolerance, of different opinions in discussions of our hobby; though I think both sides of the debate you detail should back off a bit. Both hyperbole and the arrogation of an infallible technical expertise have inhibited productive discussions of issues in which I am interested, here and elsewhere. I regret it when either or both of these excesses undermine what might otherwise have been a useful discussion.

But, I don’t agree this is this central point raised by the OP, who seems more concerned with the contemptuous attitude he thinks underlies the producer’s pricing decisions and the embarrassing effects on the general public’s opinion of audiophiles produced by marketing and purchasing ultra-expensive components. I don’t know how the OP gleaned the manufacturer’s motives, nor can I understand the two concerns he raises. First, I don’t consider that market in which a$90k PC exists to be predominantly an audiophile market, but rather a luxury goods market, which operates on another level, unrelated to standard measures of performance. Second, I can’t bring myself to be concerned about what folks not involved in the hobby think about how we evaluate the costs and benefits of the goods comprising the audio marketplace. I have acquaintances who have spent thousands of dollars collecting Stanley travel mugs and other consumer goods not initially marketed as collectibles. I don’t understand it, but they find it rewarding and that’s all that matters. We love our hobby and to hell with those who want to jeer from the sidelines.