Denon's $499 Ethernet Cable 719
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.
Yay for Amazon.com! (Score:3, Informative)
Right?
*nudge nudge wink wink*
np: Anthony Rother - Liquid System (My Name Is Beuys Von Telekraft)
Re:Audiophools (Score:1, Informative)
i'm sorry, but anyone who thinks this cable is worth five hundred bux doesn't deserve to keep their money
Inaccurate headline - not for ethernet (Score:1, Informative)
http://www.audioholics.com/news/press-releases/denon-digital-link-receives-approval-for-sacd-transmission/ [audioholics.com]
Re:Some day... (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Warranty? What warranty? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:datasheet (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Some day... (Score:5, Informative)
This was done with wine, often with humbling results.
Reviews (Score:3, Informative)
Re:datasheet (Score:5, Informative)
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!
Zip cord.... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Audiophools (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Audiophiles (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Some day... (Score:5, Informative)
Nope, no typo, just a thinko :) (Score:5, Informative)
And it looks like you save 100 pennies if you order from Denon rather than Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Denon-AKDL1-Dedicated-Link-Cable/dp/B000I1X6PM [amazon.com]
The reviews are hilarious
timothy
Re:Some day... (Score:1, Informative)
That said- There's a big divide in the audio community over double-blind testing. There's a vocal group who says that a blind A/B test is completely invalid. Then, these idiots turn around and make claims like, "When I stuck a piece of the magical masking tape to the speaker cabinet, the sound just opened up and gave me an instant orgasm that made me convulse on the floor for ten minutes." Okay, it's not quite that bad but if the difference is huge, why won't a double-blind test work? Hell, I can tell the difference between a cat turd and French silk pie, even blindfolded!
The problem is that some audiophiles need to spend money to feel like they're not being complacent about their baby... er.. system. They want that little extra push over the edge (to 11) so bad that they will themselves into hearing it. Some tweaks really are useful. If you optimize everything then the net improvement may be noticeable even if the individual tweaks aren't, but knowing what the weak links are is key. Six feet of gold power cord isn't going to do anything about the hundreds of feet of ordinary house wiring your power travels through. In fact, it is the job of your component's power supply to shield you from hearing what's going on in the AC world anyway. Even if the cable makes a slight difference, its effect should be attenuated into nothingness.
Oh well, we aren't all morons, and Denon probably figured they needed to get a $500 network cable to market before everyone else did.
No strain relief, shielding not connected! (Score:1, Informative)
http://www.usa.denon.com/AK-DL1Lit.pdf
there are at least three major shortcomings with this cable:
1) there is no strain relief that will prevent the force from pulling on the cable from stressing individual wires. These days, even the cheapest patch cables are injection molded, which virtually insures that none of wires are torn out of the crimp connection.
2) The wire mesh shielding of the cable is not connected to the metal shield surrounding the plug. This will increase the bit-error rate in noisy environments.
3) the little plastic lever that needs to be pressed to release the plug from the socket is not prevented from tearing off when the cable is disentagled by a little hood that covers its tip.
5 foot cables of decent quality that do not have the three flaws described above are less than $1 wholesale.
If Denon "engineers" (or more probably their guy that sources stuff on the cheap from chinese manufacturers promising to deliver overnight in quantities of 50) deliver such a shoddy quality on the cable, what kind of corners did they cut in the electronic design of their products?
This is the closest I could think of... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:What a Brilliant Technical Innovation (Score:3, Informative)
You pay a gazillion dollars for high-end HDMI cables because of the flaws of HDMI itself: unshielded twisted-pair over possibly long distances with no error control. Maybe in the audio world, cat-5 doesn't use error correction. Regardless, i thought optical connections were the standard for high-end audio connections.
Re:Some day... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:It's worth every penny (Score:5, Informative)
If you want the *best* signal quality possible, it's silver plated copper stranded wire (or Coax if that's the app) with silver connectors both on the cable and console. The connectors need to mate very tightly and ideally have a small gasket to seal them.
That's what I use on my GHz frequency equipment. I'd use it on my video editing gear as well, but some conspiracy has landed me with only gold plate beryllium copper contacts as the best I can find...
for average joe consumer though, they buy overpriced cables with high-end looking terminations badly assembled ending up with this [networkboy.net] as the result.
-nB
Re:It's worth every penny (Score:3, Informative)
Re:It's worth every penny (Score:4, Informative)
The truth is: very few people have the time, money and know-how to objectively compare products and sniff out the best ones. Adoration within the industry is mostly focused on money spent, i.e. the dude with a 25'000$ amp stack will get more oohs and aahs than the other guy with only a 9'000$ amp stack.
That's how you wind up with mixing engineers chopping up their perfectly fine $500 Sennheiser cans, to solder a $1500 headphone cable right onto the speaker leads. They should be shot.
Obligatory Penny Arcade (Score:2, Informative)
Not Ethernet (Score:3, Informative)
Having said that, I can't imagine this is any better than any other cable that meets their spec for this interconnect.
-Peter
It's gotta be a criminally irrisponsible con. (Score:1, Informative)
Now - consider this..... How in the hell does a UTP cable (apparently now with additional ungrounded shielding!) can make ANY difference to a digital signal? IT'S FREAKING DIGITAL you COCK!
The error correction systems would weed out any badness - that is what you paid for!
Seriously - This would be the con of the century...
Use a (good quality) CAT-6 cable...
Re:empoying? (Score:5, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:2, Informative)
Re:empoying? (Score:5, Informative)
Audiophiles are amazing. They're the only group I can think of that make Scientology, ID true believers AND flat earthers look like rationalists.
Check out the the ultimate [machinadynamica.com] in audioweenie gear. Magic rocks you tape to your cables, magic clocks, and "audio tuneups" transmitted through your phone!
I'll bet if I tape those magic rocks to the super ethernet cable and put that clock on top of my server, I can probably get a 20 jillion teraquad internet connection over the POTS line.
Re:Nope, no typo, just a thinko :) (Score:3, Informative)
Re:It's worth every penny (Score:3, Informative)