Can you Analyze this?


A buddy at work ran into me with a picture in hand wanted to show off his newly purchased road bike “Trek”. I gave it a close look while he was explaining the advance technology behind it… he then turned to me and asked, “what’s your hobby?”
I logged in A’gon and showed him a picture of a Shunyata power cord that cost the same price as his bike, $1k. Put both image side by side, the bike and the cable, and we both stare at them to value other’s hobby.
If consider both as design, parts, and labor, I clearly understand how and why the road bike would have cost $1K or more. The engineering behind it and the amount of materials to make a complete bike if not considering the time to put all parts together and tuning, adjusting, etc. The power cord, on the other hand, just lay there… I could not find any good reason to explain to him what would it take to make this P/C a $1,000?
I chose not to value it with his bike but to acknowledge him that ”this P/C is bigger (in size) and it’d sound much better than the cheapo OEM ones, dude.”
To be honest, this incident made me realize something. A quick revaluation gives me a thought that I think I need to slow it down. Because:
For $1k, I can buy a set of tires that could last (at least) a year.
For $1k, I can buy a decent CD player that I could enjoy and value it for years.
For $1K, I can buy a decent set of monitor /bookshelf that I can clearly hear greater “differences”
For $1K, I may not come back shopping for clothing for a long time.
For $1K, I could have couple business “meals” that could land me some $$$
For $1K, I can build a section of the patio for the wife for our quality time.
I fully understand that manufactures have been paid great amount of money for markupting, (oops, I misspelled it again) but C’mon now, $1K?

There was a man freshly walked inside a casino. Right at the front doors he saw people playing cards around the $10 tables, he rolled his eyes, shook his head, and mumbled “too much! where do these people get their money from?”. But much later after mid-night, he realized that he was having so much fun playing Black Jack on a $1,000 table and he could not get up and walked away…does any1 have or know a term for that? hehehe

In conclusion, for me to get this $1,000 P/C, I would have to come up with a very good lie to the boss lady… unless I’m being selfish and not telling her anything……. like I’ve been doing. Lol

Enjoy listeing everyone.
NasaMan
128x128nasaman
Nasaman:Thanks for starting this. I know that your opening a can of worms, with this topic. And going to receive some flak from the crowd that thinks that there is a great amount of R&D when it comes to this nonsense of ultra expensive power cords and cables.With there large gauged o twisted,curled,braided and dipped in gold with Platinum infused over sized spade lugs with the magic mystery insulated new and improved technology to the solid silver 15-amp IEC. This is an industry{Cable} run by many looking for a quick buck and playing on insecurity's of many thinking that this will deliver the goods. I fell for it to, so I am talking from experience and not immune to the chicanery of this marketing hype with no real science to back up the claim. I don't trust ears of critics telling me as soon as they popped this in or after the so called burn in period their jaw just hit the floor. I would like to be the emergency room doctor attending to all that have had their jaws suddenly hit the floor? Your assessment of the Trek mountain bike is right on target when comparing it's price $1000.00 to 2meters of wire in the same price range. I'm sure you tried with embarrassment and gave it your best with convincing your friend that there is great deal of difference in sound when using the $1000.00 power cord then a lesser one? But in the end you couldn't even convince yourself so finally and sadly you did your own comparison and realized the price does not justify the amount of material and R&D. I am going to get allot of flak over this.But hek who cares this is Audiogon, the greatest place to be.
Misc. Thoughts:

1. You're buying "Great Sound" not equipment.

2. If you can't hear an improvement, don't buy it.

3. You are paying for someone's talent and inspiration not just for the stuff the thing is made of.

4. If you can build an identical substitute for less -do it.

5. A fool and his money are soon parted.
I like Dweller's response.I suppose you don't think people making cables don't spend many hours trying to make improvements? Are they supposed to sell that time for free?
This can be said about any audio component unless your from the group that thinks everything sounds the same.Do we all work for free or expect to get paid for our hard work?
Just some thoughts.

Best,
Bob
Yeah, Bobf, this is exactly the kind of thing I think about when I buy a 30-day prescription for a drug that costs $150 and then you see the generic (let's take Ambien for example) that costs $15. But since I take the drug, I can't really lose sleep over not paying the extra $135 for the "intellectual property" of the brand name...

I guess it just bugs me that a lot of drugs cost less than $1 to manufacture but cost big bucks when you buy them.

I stopped taking that stuff as it did bad things for my short term memory. Now I'm sleeping just as well without it.
Just like all hobbies there are those of us who get obsessive about them, or who get obsessive about having the very best.
Perhaps a better analogy would be if your friend decided to add a $1K campagnelo crank set to improve his Treks performance.