Are audiophiles still out of their minds?


I've been in this hobby for 30 years and owned many gears throughout the years, but never that many cables.  I know cables can make a difference in sound quality of your system, but never dramatic like changing speakers, amplifiers, or even more importantly room treatment. Yes, I've evaluated many vaunted cables at dealers and at home over the years, but never heard dramatic effect that I would plunk $5000 for a cable. The most I've ever spent was $2700 for pair of speaker cables, and I kinda regret it to this day.  So when I see cable manufacturers charging 5 figures for their latest and "greatest" speaker cables, PC, and ICs, I have to ask myself who buys this stuff. Why would you buy a $10k+ cable, when there are so many great speakers, amplifiers, DACs for that kind of money, or room treatment that would have greater effect on your systems sound?  May be I'm getting ornery with age, like the water boy says in Adam Sandler's movie.
dracule1
My audiophile friend, who is the ultimate tweaker, calls high end cables expensive tone controls. I have to agree for the most part.
I enjoy meaningful discussions regarding the performance of gear when input is experienced based and reasonably objective. Such discussions about price (or value) by definition have little meaning as price is entirely a relative analyses.

Certain individuals find $100,000 wires cheap, some do not; where is the profit in belittling one or the other.  It all seams so trite, wreaks of jealousy, and ignorance.  

Get over it, accept your lot in life and enjoy it for what it is; we only get one. You may find the whole journey a little more enjoyable.


Watts...*applause*  Well and succinctly said...

Gentlemen, let's agree to disagree and return to whatever we ought to be doing, or would prefer to be doing.  The angels on the head of this pin will carry on or not without further attention.

Good night, and have a pleasant weekend. 
As a 35 year Audiophile, and Hifi store owner in thd U.K I learned many lessons 
Being from the states when I arrived in the U.K I went looking to see which brands
I would stock. U.S products were being jacked up in some cases over 100%.
I educated the people on these practices. Which helped me gain respect.
The first years because of all the scams out there and many from U.S in yhd 2000
To 2006 range. Rule of thumb minimum if a product cost for example  $1,000
In parts it is marked up 4 times that then overhead this unit maybe $5,000
The dealer gets on average 45% off of that.  Commercial brand cables 
Such as Synergistic research for example a 8-10 times markup Way over priced
With these bells and whistles like stock plug in modules for active shield,
Gor $400 more that little black box makes cable dound better.
Inside maybe $25 in parts stock model  $10 . Totals Audiophiles need to be much 
More educated and research.I have found smaller companies non big name 
You are getting many times better parts no dealers Mark up. The consumer winds.
I used to have $75k MBL electronics ,fantastic sounding yes but at a huge price .
Now I look for the best product gor least amount of money spent .
For example  and shocking no more  $1500 on interconnects . I am in the process of having custom built amp and preamp  with nothing but yhe best parts quality 
3x less money then the big names and much better parts quality and as good or better then CJ,AR Ayon, Rogue, you name it . For cables the WiRe absolutely  does matter. I use thd best in my electronics such as Neotech Single Crystal Copper
And for signal the best out there in the Silver Gold Alloy . I found a cable company 
Using the Neotech wire and using exceptional connectors .Zenwave Audio Cables
I bought their 2nd from the top using this same Silver Gold Alloy  for $550 a meter
Unbleached Cotter jacket Teflon over the wires and the excellent Copper rhodium gold interconnects from Furutech.  I have had many $$ from all the big names 
These cables beat cables 3x yhe price music just sounds like in the room 
Using wire with fevers few grain boundaries everything is more transparent and at ease. Say goes gor the power and Loudspeaker cables.
The money goes into the product not the advertising.
One closing comment these adverts out there .there is s ton oof politics in online 
And paper advertising  the big full page ads get more favorable reviews 
And comments. At present my reference preamp Direct Headed Triode preamp
Starting to get popular. Red wine audio, Coincidence for example.
My unit is much less money and a better product yhen both. Pass labs 1st watt SE
Clone amp .stuffed with nothing but the best ,companies put average quality parts in to save cost. Just keep this in mind .that is how Modwright has done well
Modding - making a product much better through premium parts and higher 
Build engineering. Anyone looking for assistance just email me I am retired but Allways a Audiophile .with a new product and system 
Synergy a very important word  .Spend less $$ and get more !! Enjoy your music !!
I’m pretty sure no self respecting audiophile pays retail. Not in this economy. I also suspect one reason why some audiophile products are priced so high is because of the cost of maintaining dealer networks. Like the $500 toilet seat it depends on how many of a particular thing one expects to sell or if each one is customized, etc. As well as developmental costs, cost of advertising, whatever. Not to mention whatever the market will bare.