Denon's $499 Ethernet Cable

Guysmiley777 writes with what looks like a very late (or very, very early) April Fool's joke: "Denon's $499 Ethernet cable 'brings out all the nuances in digital audio reproduction.' Sure, that seems plausible. After all, nuances in digital signals are so subtle. Oh, and 'signal directional markings are provided for optimum signal transfer.'" Considering that $499 will get you a competent laptop these days, I wonder how big the market is for such a thing — then I look at Stereophile magazine's annual list of recommended components. The "view more images" link shows that they take cable porn seriously at Denon.

It's worth every penny

...until your cat chews through it.

Ah well, there is a mug born every minute. I start selling $500 USB cables, anyone want one?

Re:It's worth every penny

..or until you pull the end through a snarl of cables and the plastic tab breaks off.

Cthulhu

Cable porn. Is that a sub category of tentacle porn? A giant Cthulhu-like monster made of Cat-5?

Re:Cthulhu

I find your ideas intriguing and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

What happens when everything is wireless?

Will they try selling us higher quality air to shoot the EM signals through?

Re:What happens when everything is wireless?

Will they try selling us higher quality air to shoot the EM signals through?

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Our system is available for immediate purchase. Just visit our website and select the number of filtering units that you require (ideally one unit should cover every 20 square metres, or one unit per corner of a room), and your order will be despatched within 24 hours.

Hey, there's a market for this

What's the point of using an $800 HDMI cable to connect my media center PC to my HDTV if the content I'm streaming over my network isn't in the high fidelity I can only get with this $499 Ethernet cable?

datasheet

Looking at the datasheet for that cable on their website, it seems like the only possibly unique thing they've done is to add a thin metal shield around the cable near the tip - from where it stops being UTP (with all the noise-protection that UTP tends to have) to where the plastic connector-to-NIC starts.

The cable insulation and the rest looks mostly standard - I mean, it's cloth and heatshrink (probably PVC) instead of vinyl, but I can't imagine that the change would make such a huge difference, even in terms of so-called 'vibration protection'. Are electrical signals really that sensitive to normal sounds?

So a huge markup for a very small piece of tin foil and some cloth. Whee!

Re:datasheet

So a huge markup for a very small piece of tin foil and some cloth. Whee!

That makes you think... How about high fidelity tin foil hats?

Re:datasheet

You're forgetting the signal direction markings: who knew that electrical signals could read ?
I know that before I put little arrows on my cat5 a lot of my ethernet packets were getting lost.

Now I'm going to see if I can do traffic shaping by putting "Slashdot, this way ->" on them.

Re:datasheet

Oh God no. You'll just have greater clarity in the upper octaves and your porn will be more nuanced.

There is more

While they're at it they should just purchase this wonderful device to demagentize your CD's [6moons.com].

Some day...

...I wish someone would do a form of blind test - split a bunch of audiophiles into two different groups. Tell one group the price and quality of each system, while the other group isn't told anything and can only listen to the system. Or for extra fun, a third group that's telling them all sorts of wrong information. It'd be fun to see how much that would impact their impression of the system.

Re:Some day...

Well here's your answer:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jun/14/humanbehaviour

"How being swindled can make you feel better" by the Guardian's "Bad Science" columnist, Ben Goldacre.

In other news...

A fool and his money are soon parted

Truth in advertising

I don't doubt that this is a well-made cable, but why don't they get in trouble for implying that it will even make a difference in your viewing experience? That is, wont *any* cable "bring out all the nuances in digital audio reproduction" as long as there's functional error correction and sufficient bandwidth to stream all data being transmitted?

What a Brilliant Technical Innovation

These cable will be a great leap forward for Digital Audio.

The arrows to indicate direction will mean that the Electrons wont have to look around before knowing which way they are supposed to be moving. This will allow them to get to their destination quicker and even take a moment to go back and get any stragglers who can't keep up. The end result being that all of the electrons will arrive at the intended destination and as you can imagine this will mean a much better signal.

The next generation of these will probably contain filters to stop those pesky noise electrons making their way down the cable. This will really help the signal to noise ratio, although the commercial development of this is still a little way off yet.

Is ALL Denon suspect?

I was thinking of buying a Denon AV receiver for my home theater upgrade.

Then I see this. Are all their claims just sheer puffery? How can I take their brand seriously?

If this Ethernet garbage is just an aberration, don't they know that doing it will have the reverse effect on consumers with clue?

Signal directional markings

Additionally, signal directional markings are provided for optimum signal transfer.

That statement is quite correct. The plugs have arrows pointing in both directions.

Re:Audiophools

You have just described every collector of Star Wars action figures.

Re:Audiophools

There are two types of Audiophiles:
(1) Non-technical people who like knowing they have thousands of dollars in equipment, blissfully ignorant of the technical details, but trusting in the outlandish claims of the various companies.
(2) Technical people who know about skin depth, SNR, etc. and make informed purchases and more often than not (as in my case) build their own high end audio equipment.

Re:Someone will ask for it

And since we're talking about cat5 cabling.........here [monstercable.com].

Re:Audiophiles

Oh, yes, please! Only a high-quality wooden volume control can convey the subtle warmth of audio amplified by vacuum tubes. :)

Re:...This got greenlit?

Man, maybe I'm a terrible person, but I absolutely love these kinda scams.

Every time I see something like this, I really wish I'd thought of it.

Re:Wow.

One branch of ComputerWorld used to sell boxes of 10 3.5" pre-formatted floppy disks for 100 pounds/box. This particular branch was next to an oil company headquarters.