[greenhorn]

pdupiano, I can also say that my feeling is that you know little about the subject but your efforts to explain that a 889 USD cable is almost a bargain are appreciated.

Keep on the good work... I might buy an Adrenaline cable and leave also a nice tip

 

[greenhorn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by haloxt /img/forum/go_quote.gif My criterion for "charging too much" is if you can afford multiple luxury cars. I don't really have anything against people "charging too much" though, it's just how the economy works. Like that Leonard Cohen song, Everybody Knows.

Producing a BMW Serie 7 DOES cost a lot more than producing a Ford Fiesta.

Building a 10 feet cable DOES NOT cost (much) more than producing another 10 feet cable.

See my question above about Cardas and Stefan Audio Art and so on.

As for how economy works... it works just fine, but it's just distorted by names like Bose or others, who are actually mainly marketing enterprises. You know, "you can get the same quality elsewhere at a third of the price" - and many agree on this as far as Bose is concerned.

What seems to happen now is that the Bose strategy is extending, little by little, in the aftermarket cable business.

 

[jpelg]

Quote:

Originally Posted by greenhorn /img/forum/go_quote.gif I wish somebody to explain me how can Cardas or Stefan Audio Art and other sell a super-well made 10 feet cable for 150-200 USD and other can't but for 800 USD. Same length, same labour... enlighten me.

Have you seen SAA's latest Voice cable for the HD800? $1400 is quite a bit more than that!

 

[greenhorn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jpelg /img/forum/go_quote.gif Have you seen SAA's latest Voice cable for the HD800? $1400 is quite a bit more than that!

WOW! I'm speechless. No, I didn't see that! And the cable for HD600 sells now for 319 USD! I remember it was like 200USD 3-4 years ago.

 

[Steve Eddy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jpelg /img/forum/go_quote.gif Have you seen SAA's latest Voice cable for the HD800? $1400 is quite a bit more than that!

Hey, all that purple prose and marketing jibberish doesn't come cheap ya know!

k

 

[pdupiano]

Quote:

Originally Posted by greenhorn /img/forum/go_quote.gif pdupiano, I can also say that my feeling is that you know little about the subject but your efforts to explain that a 889 USD cable is almost a bargain are appreciated. Keep on the good work... I might buy an Adrenaline cable and leave also a nice tip

I never said that a cable for 900 is a bargain, I demonstrated that the mark up is 100%

How do i know little about the subject? I'm not the one who said
1. It takes 20 minutes to braid a 10ft cable
2. It only takes 10 ft of Jena labs wire to make a 10 ft cable (when you really need 4)
3. All that mattes is material cost, no other cost in terms of making/tools/creditcards/licensing fees etc...

Besides, all of you are forgetting that when you build/sell anything you don't just keep making it and selling it forever, eventually there is a limit to how many TV's, or ipods you can sell. Because of that limit you price your merchandise accordingly on making new products, advertising, etc... Stefan Audio Art did that and now they have a 1400 cable, for a 1400 headphone... that you can get for 1250 in the forums...

But like I said, no one is forcing you to buy any of these cables, just like no one is forcing you to buy a flat 50inch plasma screen with a bluray player built in.

 

[greenhorn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by pdupiano /img/forum/go_quote.gif I never said that a cable for 900 is a bargain, I demonstrated that the mark up is 100% How do i know little about the subject? I'm not the one who said 1. It takes 20 minutes to braid a 10ft cable 2. It only takes 10 ft of Jena labs wire to make a 10 ft cable (when you really need 4) 3. All that mattes is material cost, no other cost in terms of making/tools/creditcards/licensing fees etc... Besides, all of you are forgetting that when you build/sell anything you don't just keep making it and selling it forever, eventually there is a limit to how many TV's, or ipods you can sell. Because of that limit you price your merchandise accordingly on making new products, advertising, etc... Stefan Audio Art did that and now they have a 1400 cable, for a 1400 headphone... that you can get for 1250 in the forums... But like I said, no one is forcing you to buy any of these cables, just like no one is forcing you to buy a flat 50inch plasma screen with a bluray player built in.

I gladly corrected my mistake (that I forgot to multiply the lenght of the wire by 4) while you continue to speak about non-existant costs.

Of course no one is forcing me to buy such cables. No one is forcing you either to buy a 10 million $ yacht - and you have just read two phrases that are both completely irrelevant for our topic.

I feel that my point (that some cable manufacturers charge huge amounts to buyers ready to believe anything if nicely wrapped - pun intended) stays perfectly valid.

Let's stop, OK?

 

[haloxt]

He's not speaking about "non-existent costs", he's just giving a random estimation of what might be considered in making cables for a living. Such hypotheticals are essential for guessing what is a "fair" price for a cable company to sell things for. Your point that "some cable manufacturers charge huge amounts" is pointless, people in all fields have bad business ethics. Name a business and I'll give you examples of rip-offs.

 

[pdupiano]

Quote:

Originally Posted by greenhorn /img/forum/go_quote.gif I gladly corrected my mistake (that I forgot to multiply the lenght of the wire by 4) while you continue to speak about non-existant costs. Of course no one is forcing me to buy such cables. No one is forcing you either to buy a 10 million $ yacht - and you have just read two phrases that are both completely irrelevant for our topic. I feel that my point (that some cable manufacturers charge huge amounts to buyers ready to believe anything if nicely wrapped - pun intended) stays perfectly valid. Let's stop, OK?

No, you can't just stop after badmouthing cable companies saying that they charge large astronomical markups when I just demonstrated (from the example earlier) that they charge something appropriate, akin to any luxury item out there. In fact your example shows that the mark up is 200% also instead of the 500000% that people seem to associate with VD cables. Name 1 luxury item where the mark up isn't atleast 100% if not 200% of manufacturing costs, think Lexus, the HD800, grado headphones, and anything else in high end audio for that matter. These are all luxury items, reasons why the discussion regarding other luxury items are not irrelevant. Additionally as luxury items, discussing their prices is irrelevant,

If there's one thing that all anti/pro cables should agree on, is that all of these items are Luxury items and normal pricing rules do not apply to them, and if they do I want you guys to go talk to rolex about letting me have one for a few hundred (their manufacturing cost) or bmw because I wouldn't mind getting an M3/M5 at manufacturing cost.

 

[greenhorn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by haloxt /img/forum/go_quote.gif Your point that "some cable manufacturers charge huge amounts" is pointless, people in all fields have bad business ethics. Name a business and I'll give you examples of rip-offs.

What about cable business.

 

[haloxt]

Monster is a good example of a big corporation that has mass production, large consumer base, and $$$ on its side but chooses not to give people quality, well-researched, well-priced goods.

 

[Steve Eddy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by haloxt /img/forum/go_quote.gif Monster is a good example of a big corporation that has mass production, large consumer base, and $$$ on its side but chooses not to give people quality, well-researched, well-priced goods.

Because they're too busy running around suing every business that uses the word "monster."

Noel Lee ought to be taken out and horse whipped with his own cables.

k

 

[greenhorn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by pdupiano /img/forum/go_quote.gif No, you can't just stop after badmouthing cable companies saying that they charge large astronomical markups when I just demonstrated (from the example earlier) that they charge something appropriate, akin to any luxury item out there. In fact your example shows that the mark up is 200% also instead of the 500000% that people seem to associate with VD cables. Name 1 luxury item where the mark up isn't atleast 100% if not 200% of manufacturing costs, think Lexus, the HD800, grado headphones, and anything else in high end audio for that matter. These are all luxury items, reasons why the discussion regarding other luxury items are not irrelevant. Additionally as luxury items, discussing their prices is irrelevant, If there's one thing that all anti/pro cables should agree on, is that all of these items are Luxury items and normal pricing rules do not apply to them, and if they do I want you guys to go talk to rolex about letting me have one for a few hundred (their manufacturing cost) or bmw because I wouldn't mind getting an M3/M5 at manufacturing cost.

Read again. I'm not badmouthing "cable companies" in general. It's on those cable companies that charge too much without any justification but demesurate greed. While other cable companies charge "normal" prices.

Hey, I'm really getting tired of this. I (believe that) I made my point, you (believe that) you made your point... each one who reads draws his own conclusions. I can't just stop, you say?

 

[haloxt]

In the world of business, big profit margin is a virtue not a sin.

 

[royalcrown]

Just an interjection:

Claiming that "supply and demand" justifies the way that cables are currently priced just shows that whoever is making the claim has no idea what they're talking about. Supply and demand, even in its most simplistic form (that many are referring to in this thread), assumes perfect information. Without this background assumption (along with several more, but those other ones are usually fulfilled fairly well), a price equilibrium does not indicate economic efficiency or a proper allocation of goods. In fact, given that knowledge of the market is laughably low (no R&D, no objective information, no government or even voluntary standards organizations... hell, a large number of cables aren't even UL certified) just tossing out the term "supply and demand" means essentially nothing.

Think about it this way: if someone claimed to have the cure for cancer and sold it, the product would likely fetch an extraordinarily high price. However, if the product didn't actually do anything (and people weren't aware of this fact), the price equilibrium would be far from efficient. Even if the product did cure cancer, but had a large number of undesirable side-effects such as organ failure (and people weren't aware of this fact), the price equilibrium would be completely different from its allocation if people were aware of this fact.