[OddE]

Hi,
 
I really, really like Ars Technica and their reporting on all things tech.
 
Their current story on $10k Ethernet is well worth a read.
 
http://arstechnica.com/staff/2015/02/to-the-audiophile-this-10000-ethernet-cable-apparently-makes-sense/

 

[Music Alchemist]

Who cares about sound quality when you can have a cable that looks like this?
 

 

 
But um...$10,000? It's under $1,200 here. Guess it depends on length.

 

[Music Alchemist]

Those Amazon reviews are worth reading as well.
 

As everyone knows, Ethernet cables are for transmitting digital data and that any basic cable with the right rating will successfully transmit any signal thrown at it. However, what people don't know is that -- given the right product -- you can transmit more than digital information through the cable. In addition to the digital information, this cable lets you transmit analog signals such as love, tea, the color green, and the feeling that you get when you first step into a warm bath.
 
After experiencing this, I'm never going back to the cheap $5 Ethernet cables that only transmit digital data.

My husband recently upgraded his home office, and as an early fathers day gift I emptied out our daughters college fund to purchase two of these for his PC and Printer. For the first day everything was going great, and he was hollering out to me from his office that the internet speed had gone from 50mb to 500mb and was climbing every hour. He joked about downloading every torrent he could find to see how much he could get, and setup a list and went to bed.
 
This morning we wake up and find the computer is using the printer to replicate a phyical body, and has become sentient over night. We tried to pull the 8m (26'3") Audioquest Diamond RJ/E (Ethernet) Cable out of the wall but when my husband approached the cable the computer tazed him and theatened more violence. He's currently trying to turn off the cable modem but the data closet is mysteriously locked from the inside.
 
Going to call tech support to see if they know how to stop a sentient PC from taking over my house. I knew we should have purshased from Apple!

 
XD

 

[proton007]

Ars, Slashdot, and now here. The 10k cable. 
 
Works or not, it's been getting some large amounts of publicity. I bet everyone in the world will know about this company now.
 
This is what I love about the media. Super stardom lies in being a deviant, better or worse.

 

[Music Alchemist]

I think the "$10,000 cable" thing is some sort of third-party publicity stunt, because as shown earlier, the 5 feet length is under $1,200. It would only approach $10,000 if the length was absurdly long.

 

[cjl]

Because $1200 for a cable that should cost $10 is of course completely reasonable...

 

[cjl]

EDIT: ignore this post...

 

[Linchpin]

  I think the "$10,000 cable" thing is some sort of third-party publicity stunt, because as shown earlier, the 5 feet length is under $1,200. It would only approach $10,000 if the length was absurdly long.

 
5 feet for an ethernet cable is what I would personally consider rather short as would a lot of other people.

 

[RRod]

   
5 feet for an ethernet cable is what I would personally consider rather short as would a lot of other people.

 
Personally I go with a longer palladium-iridium fiber optic cable that I can run from my FIOS box to my restroom, then just run the $1200 ethernet from the router on my sink to the laptop in front of the john. Less $$ per foot; no reason to waste money!

 

[Music Alchemist]

  5 feet for an ethernet cable is what I would personally consider rather short as would a lot of other people.

 
What would an audiophile need a much longer cable for? I would imagine that someone willing to spend that much on a cable would have his high-end gear in one place.

 

[cjl]

   
What would an audiophile need a much longer cable for? I would imagine that someone willing to spend that much on a cable would have his high-end gear in one place.

Again, I don't see why it matters. $1200 is still way, way too much for 5 feet of cable. I can get 20 meters of cat7 (which is way, way overkill - you really don't need more than cat5e for anything at home) for $30.

 

[Music Alchemist]

  Again, I don't see why it matters. $1200 is still way, way too much for 5 feet of cable. I can get 20 meters of cat7 (which is way, way overkill - you really don't need more than cat5e for anything at home) for $30.

 
I never said it did. I was responding to the subject of length and people who buy cables like this. I just don't see why longer than a few feet would be necessary.

 

[rovopio]

this, people, is what you call genius in marketing.

 

[manbear]

I liked the part about the netgear switch.

I've never understood why cable people arent more concerned about the weakest link in the chain... The signal chain includes all kinds of solder leads, pcb traces, physical sockets, etc. and only replacing parts of it with fancy wire makes a difference?

 

[Dobrescu George]

actually i think that the principle of psychology behind audioquest is completley different from what most people think..
 
Doing some reverse thinking, as i also have to sell things, i would actually have an outrageous product in sale, because, this would attract a lot of other poetential customers. for example, say that they do not sell even one cable, it costed them way under 50$ to make it, this is for sure.
 
But many people will se it, and will be curious how does the dragonfly sound like, and it is sold for a good price, so a lot of dragonfly buyers. technically, they are just marketing in another way.
 
Thinking it out of the box even further, there is a 80% chance that one of us will be interested in a audioquest product. it is similar to chord marketing, where everything is priced pretty high, but it is the highest quality in the world.