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

[Marcion]

...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

[sakusha]

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

Re:It's worth every penny

[fm6]

So, you just secure it in place with duct tape. And for that, you want high fidelity duct tape...

Re:Free with Vista Ultimate.

[Bloater]

Don't forget "RAM Doubling driver" - $49

empoying?

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

You think at $500 a pop, Denon could afford a copy editor - or at least a spellchecker! The tortured grammar of the non-statement about design is also a howler.

Re:empoying?

[billcopc]

That's actually a feature! It's audiophile-talk for "This shit is so advanced you can't even comprehend its futuristic grammar".

Seriously, cable vendors and cable fetishists need to be buried alive under a truckload of Monster interconnects. If you buy a cable and you can hear a difference with the rest, it's because you've got a bad cable. Audio doesn't go anywhere close to the high frequencies that are affected by line capacitance and the so-called skin-effect. As long as they've got enough bulk to support the current being driven, everything else is virtually identical.

Re:empoying?

[sjames]

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:empoying?

[Pr0Hak]

i think you mean monoprice.com . I've also had good luck with cablesforless.com

Re:empoying?

[billcopc]

Harsh sound ? See now that's the one thing I never understood... how can a cable make the sound "harsher" ? I could see a poor (wrong gauge) cable affecting low frequencies, but what I call "harshness" is usually caused by hard-surfaced tweeters (as opposed to silk or paper cones).

The thing one must understand regarding "high end" stereo equipment, is the marketing aspect of it all. Once you pass a certain threshold, say $600 per component (or $3000 for a 5.1 system with receiver/amp), you step into the audiophile reality distortion field. Crossing that line means you've got money to burn, which is why audiophile gear starts out cheap and stretches to infinity dollars.

The reason your buddy's $11k stereo sounded like ass, is because it puts him in the "rich sucker" bracket. The components may have been selected by the sales person or manufacturer to sound a little off, solely to create demand for their $15k system. The term "upgrade" is heard every day in audio shops around the globe, and such upgrades tend to happen in small, granular steps. That's why speaker vendors don't have just one "perfect" set, they have a long list of products carefully plotted from cheap to obscene, and many shops will offer a trade-in program to help you climb that money ladder. It's all designed to part fools with their money while convincing them otherwise.

Anecdote: a while back I had a stereophile chum, but unfortunately he was dumber than dirt so our convos were rather bland, but he spent every last penny of his on stereo equipment, which fascinated me from a psychological perspective. I never actually liked his system, partly because his "listening room" was a small apartment living room...

Anyway, he started out small, spending about $300 on each speaker and $800 on the receiver. A few months later he had replaced his fronts with a more exotic pair, and continued over the following weeks to replace his other speakers until he had a full matching set. A year later, he had replaced his entire kit twice more, having sold his car to afford a $12000 system, always the same brand as his first cheap kit. Well it should come as no surprise that it sounded like ass to me. He still had sharp highs and horrible staging. Even he conceded there were improvements to be made, to come when his finances allowed it.

Over the course of three years, he probably spent close to $25k on audio gear, since he was selling the used gear at half-price or less. I then used my powers of geekiness to convince him to sell his last heap of junk to some naive schmuck, and took him shopping - online, that is. Shipping was a bitch, but all-told I had him spend about $7k on an assortment of drivers, enclosures, crossover components, soundproofing and related materials, and of course a fierce amp and receiver. I brought over my measuring equipment and taught him how to build speakers (to the best of his limited IQ). He was now free to tweak them according to his personal preferences.

He spent the next few months experimenting with different cones, crossover freqs, enclosure stuffing and a few other tricks I had shown him. Less than a year later, he had settled on his preferred setup, built a second kit out of the leftovers that wasn't half bad. I added some final touches, he sold off the extra system for $3k. Most importantly, he was absolutely in love with his home-made hi-fi sound and it only cost him about $4500 + a lot of fun time playing with it.

The lessons he learned can be applied to any speakers, much like I've been doing forever. Sometimes a commercial speaker might sound 95% good, but have a few annoying flaws. With a bit of elbow grease and know-how, those flaws can often be addressed with an afternoon and just a few bucks.

Re:It's worth every penny

[mrchaotica]

I use that when connection quality doesn't matter.

You do realize we're talking about a $499 ethernet cable that claims to "bring out nuances" here, right? If the idiot believed that the $499 cable was actually different in the first place, then he would only be compounding his idiocy by failing to care whether the repair was sloppy.

Re:It's worth every penny

[Blakey Rat]

My audio cables are temporally-shielded to prevent interference caused by the EM wake of time travelers. A steal at only $800. An inch.

Try $550

[mako1138]

http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/pcaudio/messages/2/28626.html [audioasylum.com]

They're treated with "quantum tunneling".

"Is the Synergistic one meter USB cable worth $550? No, it is worth twice this amount."

Sigh.

Re:It's worth every penny

[Usquebaugh]

In free advertising for Denon

1 Advertise cable with crazy price
2 Post story to /.
3 Hordes click to laugh
4 Some buy other cables
5 $$$

Re:It's worth every penny

[History's Coming To]

Hmm...I'm not an audio geek, but my flatmates make a living from music with a lot of talent and little technical knowledge. And I help them on the techie side. Suffice to say, Denon have made their brand very clear, and very un-buyable to me, and hence to a group of musicians.

Re:It's worth every penny

[ShieldW0lf]

Dude, you're missing the point. You hang iPods off the end of them, then hang them on your rear view mirror, like fuzzy dice. It's geek bling.

Re:It's worth every penny

[billcopc]

It's also pretty difficult to pull any sort of BS in the professional sector

Really ? They're just as gullible as the next guy, for the most part. Many musicians hold an almost religious adherence to brands and product lines. They've been brainwashed by the "Pro costs 7x more" attitude that has hatched all these scam shops. Don't ask a sound engineer to tell you why he prefers Brand-X over Brand-Z, there are only two answers to that question: either he'll tell you that's all he's ever used and all he ever will, or he read a favorable review in "Sound on Sound Magazine", which is like saying he found human life on earth.

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.

Re:It's worth every penny

[donguru]

There is, however, a significant difference between using two point and four point barbed wire for speaker cables. Per http://www.tinaja.com/glib/marcia.pdf [tinaja.com]

Re:It's worth every penny

[niko9]

Don't laugh.

Check this out: http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2008/03/300_audiophile_grade_power_cable_is_really_worth_15-2.html [gizmodo.com.au]

And the actual thread at Head-Fi: http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f21/my-cat-tore-up-my-virtual-dynamics-power-3-a-293165/ [head-fi.org]

What's surprising about this is some of the comments made by the company rep.

Re:It's worth every penny

[dreddnott]

That is an incredible thread. I didn't know people this gullible existed. What an amazingly profitable scam business!

Re:It's worth every penny

[TechForensics]

Hey, don't joke! This is dead serious! Take a look at this note from the designer of the Tesla Cable series:

On the dawn of discovery I was hoping to develop cables that would be small, light and flexible while maintaining the same levels of performance obtained in our X2 Series cables. What I was not prepared for was the break-through that would become the TESLA Series. After a long trial and error process in developing an electromagnetic lens geometry we arrived at what would become the TESLA Tricon in the summer of 2006. I remember in vivid detail that afternoon when I first connected two interconnects comprised of two TESLA Tricon geometries in parallel, (now the Precision Reference) and listened to a recording I've been using since 1995. Fifteen seconds into the first track I shot up and ran from my listening chair to find Eliott (my co-developer in the TESLA Series). I could not believe my ears and wanted to find out if something had been changed in our system that I was not aware of, (we love to tweak our system and I needed to know if he had changed something). What I heard was unbelievable! The sound stage had moved out so far past the boundaries of our listening room that I suspected a major change had been made to our listening room's acoustics. Furthermore, I was hearing subtle and not so subtle details and frequency extension from bottom to top that I've never before heard from this recording. The truly amazing thing was that this detail and signal speed was presented in a way that was also much more musical than it had been before. By comparison the sound we had been making was grainy, opaque, spatially compressed and slow with ill-defined bass. Now the sound was HUGE with amazing air that seemed to decay into infinity. The sound had a transparent "see through" quality and was absolutely effortless and grain free. The sound stage had also moved back several feet except when instruments were recorded front and center and these were presented further forward than before. I was beginning to realize that every cable I or anyone else had ever developed was spatially compressed- vertically, laterally, and horizontally. I was also hearing images in a near 360-degree sound field that "wrapped" around my listening chair. Before the Tricon we had hints of this envelopment but never to such an extent. Lastly low frequencies, (a long time virtue of Synergistic Research cables) were now tighter and went deeper with amazing power and control. This was major improvement in an area that I did not think could be improved upon.

Sort of opens your eyes, doesn't it?

Nope, no typo, just a thinko :)

[timothy]

I thought so at first, too, but in depressing fact, that's the real price from Denon.

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:Nope, no typo, just a thinko :)

[GumphMaster]

Curiously though, they'll only ship this cable within the US because either:

• Only US residents are stupid enough to part with this amount of cash for common or garden variety twisted pair (which I seriously doubt), or
• The cable needs to be specially counter-wound for use in the southern or eastern hemispheres. Even a casual inspection shows that the electrons need to be up-down corrected for the south, and self-censored for the Chinese market.

Re:Nope, no typo, just a thinko :)

[WGFCrafty]

The comments are great too.

M. Anderson says: Don't buy these cables. Gold and silver are not good enough. If you're a serious audophile, superconducting cuprate-perovskite ceramic materials cooled to 60 kelvin is what your after. My MP3 collection never sounded better.

Re:Nope, no typo, just a thinko :)

[knutkracker]

Tags amazon customers have associated with this product:

• snake oil (91)
• waste of money (62)
• ripoff (61)
• unconscionable (54)
• throwing your money away (52)
• stupid (48)
• pure garbage (28)
• cheat (25)
• immoral (20)
• denon (10)
• harry potter (6)

WTF? I can't even think of a stupid reason for tagging this 'Harry Potter', let alone a serious one.

Re:Nope, no typo, just a thinko :)

[LordVader717]

From the Amazon Customers Review:

A caution to people buying these: if you do not follow the "directional markings" on the cables, your music will play backwards.

ROFL

Re:It's worth every penny

[flappinbooger]

I bet it has something to do with the nature of the cable. It is probably the twisted pairs. They are hand twisted by hot 6 foot tall blond virgins with phd degrees.

That way you're guaranteed the best and most precise twistiness for your twisted pairs.

See, they don't tell you that in the ad because it's a trade secret. The other cables are just twisted by a machine or something, thus the mundane pricing.

Re:It's worth every penny

[Robber Baron]

I bet it has something to do with the nature of the cable. It is probably the twisted pairs. They are hand twisted by hot 6 foot tall blond virgins with phd degrees.

That way you're guaranteed the best and most precise twistiness for your twisted pairs.

See, they don't tell you that in the ad because it's a trade secret. The other cables are just twisted by a machine or something, thus the mundane pricing.

Even if they were twisted out of 6 foot tall blond virgins' pubic hair, it's still not worth it!

Re:It's worth every penny

[jimmydevice]

For $499.00 is should come with a hot 6 foot tall blond virgin.

Re:It's worth every penny

[markov_chain]

I'll buy one - just tell me it will it make my 1.1 ports run at 480Mb/s.

It will make your 1.1 ports run at 480Mb/s. *holds out hand*

Re:It's worth every penny

[SMS_Design]

No, I'm saving up for a gold-plated toilet.

Gold plated? Peasant.

Re:It's worth every penny

[networkBoy]

Silver is better than gold all the way around with only one exception: it oxidizes.
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

[seaturnip]

Not true, two people in that thread are basically going for it:

Audioquest makes a "high-end" ethernet cable also, but it's only $25. I think I'd try it first before plunking down $500.

Guys... if I was much richer than I am, I'd be blowing 500 clams on a cable. Just to give it a whirl. In reality, there is likely a point of diminishing returns in most systems. My guess is that point occurs at about 100 bucks for ICs and maybe, just maybe a tad more for speaker wire, dependent on the lengths and gauge.

So these people feel a 500$ ethernet cable is out of their price range but they might plop for a 25$ or 100$ one. Idiots.

Cthulhu

[Frosty Piss]

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

Re:Cthulhu

[cthulu_mt]

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

Re:Cthulhu

[spazdor]

OK, I'm invoking Rule 34. Provide links.

This is the closest I could think of...

[zalas]

These pictures are the closest I could think of off the top of my head and it comes in your choice of black [merumeru.mobi] or white [merumeru.mobi]. Enjoy... <_<;

Re:This is the closest I could think of...

[spazdor]

Henry Ford? Is that you?

(both links go to 'black' ;)

Re:Cthulhu

[Nullav]

Would those be Monster cables, by any chance?

Re:Cthulhu

[Oktober Sunset]

A giant Cthulhu-like monster made of Cat-5?

I think you just described what's behind my desk.

What happens when everything is wireless?

[linzeal]

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

Re:

[JDHannan]

something has to connect to the wireless transmitter and receiver! And I'm ready to sell that something for $500!

Re:What happens when everything is wireless?

[mikael]

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

We Introduce our latest product, the Acme professional EF signal booster. Scientific studies have proven that high humidity levels reduce signal quality of EM signals. After years of painstaking research, our scientists have designed and patented a foolproof system for maximising the quality of EM signals within a internal area. Using our patented process of filtering the air molecules within a building, our system removes all impurities and excess humidity that would reduce the quality of EM signals in your building. Our system also reshapes the air molecules as well as adding specially designed EM friendly molecules which guarantee that your electronic equipment will always receive and transmit the highest quality EM signals wherever you are.

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.

Re:What happens when everything is wireless?

[TheGratefulNet]

my april-fools posting from a few years ago:

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.audio.marketplace/msg/c1d47f6cc984588d?hl=en&dmode=source&output=gplain [google.com]


Newly redesigned! Highest quality shielded fiber-optic cables. Will
DEFINITELY make a difference in the way your CD's sound. Trust me.

Why run just one media type when you can run two at the same time! Special
connectors at each end allow you to connect to BOTH the fiber AND the coax
jacks, concurrently. The end result yields a level of fault-tolerance that
has never before been available to the end consumer.

Note: these cables are significantly more transparent than ST, I2S, Toslink or
coax, alone.

This week, they're on special for $299.95 (for a 3 metre length). Other
custom lengths are available on request.



if you can believe it, a few people actually took that stuff seriously! they didn't even notice the 1-apr posting date.

actually, my new idea is to use a non-ferrite bead (NFB) like device (as a 'bad waves' blocker) and combine that with the differential fiber optic cable. I'm still hoping to close first-round funding any day now. denon, are you listening?

Re:What happens when everything is wireless?

[DarkOx]

Not EM, but I let me take a crack at the audio/air biz.

Are you looking to recreat the concert experience at home? Have you already asembled the stero system proffessionals dream of but can't understand why it still just won't sound like its live? The problem is the air in your home. Sound waves propogate through air from the speaker to your air differently depending on the exact chemical make up of the air. If you really want your live recordings to have that same special POP you heard at the concert you need to recreate the air. For only $500 our company can have a air delivered to your home form all major us cities representive of almost any time of day! You can finally recreate that perfect sonic experience you enjoyed at the club last year. Once our custom built to preserve, air canister arrives all you need to do is open the easily turn valve and you can immediatly start enjoying more prefect reporductions of live concerts! Its that easy!

Still need that little extra? Well we also have special modifier canisters availible, that can be added to your order for only a small additional cost. These include botique air qualites such as smoke, and stale beer, which can also subtly change the way sound waves porogate and may be requried for the ideal experince. Stop trying to play your recorded sound into a medium it was never ment to be played in, start enjoying your recordings in the air they were ment for today!

Audiophools

[ylikone]

Products like this are proof that audiophiles are not very intelligent and easily swayed to buying things they do not need.

Re:Audiophools

[hack slash]

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

Re:Audiophools

[HungSoLow]

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:Audiophools

[hackstraw]

I run my $1800 speakers (stereo pair, not 50.1 surround sound) though a Realistic 1978 integrated amp I got for $35 dollars.

Sounds great.

Re:

[couchslug]

"Products like this are proof that audiophiles are not very intelligent and easily swayed to buying things they do not need."

A fool and his money deserve to be parted. :)

Re:Audiophools

[Lumpy]

The more money you spend on your Stereo or home theater. the dumber you are.

Yes, several of my clients are INCREDIBLY stupid. they have $5000.00 DVD players, $12,000.00 Surround sound deciders, and over $100,000 in speakers.

They are flat out morons. but I'll take their money every time they offer it. If I did not take it, someone else would.

Re:Audiophools

[agendi]

I was with you until you suggested drinking a Miller Lite... guess it's back to being a beer snob then.

Hey, there's a market for this

[Skee09]

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

[drakyri]

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

[ozamosi]

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

[sjf]

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

[HaeMaker]

Google: Shielded Twisted Pair (STP). Quite common. Probably can get a 1.5m STP cable for about $3.

Re:datasheet

[mprindle]

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!

I use shielded connectors at work every day. I work in the industrial sector so we must use shielded to keep external noise from interfering with the network. I wish I could charge my customers that much for shielded cables...

Re:datasheet

[sjf]

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

There is more

[gotw]

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

Re:There is more

[jbrader]

Oh man that's really classic. It says that tiny iron particles in your CDs get spun inside the player and create tiny electric fields that interfere with your gear. Awsome. I'm pretty sure that a person's electrical field is many, many times larger than any field produced this way. That's right all you audiophiles, if you leave the room your music will sound better than ever.

Re:There is more

[frdmfghtr]

As an EE major this seriously makes me want to hurt someone.

As an EE major you should make it a senior project to prove/debunk this scientifically.

Take a CD (or better yet, several CDs of different brands) and record a set of sounds on them. For example, record sine wave tones of 50, 500, 1k, 5k, 10k, and 20k Hertz. Go a step further and record square and sawtooth waves of the same set of audible frequencies.

Now, run the audio output of a CD player (the CD drive audio out will suffice I would think) into a oscilloscope and spectrum analyzer and capture the resulting output wave/spectrum. Maybe take a few sample runs and compile each run into an average.

Get your EE dept. to buy one of these devices (you're a college student; don't spend your own money), treat the CDs with the device, and repeat the test. Compare the audio waveform and the spectral content before and after the "demagnetization" treatment.

You will note the the 6moons site states that the equipment and CDs "sound" better; it's purely subjective. YOU, on the other hand, will scientifically demonstrate what we all believe to be a big sham. "Just like with treated CDs, a veil or haze was lifted and more and finer details were able to make it through to the listener." Yeah, because the listener believed that was supposed to happen.

Some day...

[Kjella]

...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...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Some day...

[Achoi77]

This was done with wine, often with humbling results.

Re:Some day...

[maxume]

I'm pretty sure there is a decay function. A $3 bottle generally isn't going to be as good as a $10 bottle, but even though a $10 bottle that you like is a better experience than a $25 you don't like, people need to feel like that $15 bought something, so they 'prefer' the $25 bottle.

It works for spirits too, I'm pretty sure that $13 Smirnoff is more than 40% as good as $29 absolut or $35 Goose. Probably like 85%. 5 O'clock is probably about 5% as good.

So a $100 DVD player may actually be quite a lot better than a $25 DVD player (perhaps the menus are sane, or it is more reliable), but the only difference between the $100 DVD player and a $500 DVD player is about $400 of profit.

Re:Some day...

[squidfood]

It works for spirits too, I'm pretty sure that $13 Smirnoff is more than 40% as good as $29 absolut or $35 Goose. Probably like 85%.

Yah, but that missing 15% really fucking hurts the next day.

Re:Some day...

[Joska]

This type of test has been conducted a great many times over the years. Notable is the work of Dr. Floyd Toole when he was head of the acoustics lab at the Department Of Physics at Canada's National Research Council in Ottawa. He was able to demonstrate that people of all sorts would recognize and prefer the sound reproduction that was most accurate in terms of having the lowest distortion, flattest frequency response and best loudspeaker dispersion as long as they did not know what equipment they were listening to. When they did know, their beliefs and preconceptions essentially determined their perceptions.

Re:Some day...

[ucblockhead]

You don't need a blind test. Ethernet is digital. You cannot get better than "0 dropped packets" no matter how good the cable is, and given modern error correction techniques, even with some dropped packets, the actual bits that get delivered and turned into sound will be identical.

In other news...

[Radium_]

A fool and his money are soon parted

Truth in advertising

[dn15]

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

[OzTech]

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.

Yay for Amazon.com!

[Briareos]

Even Amazon.com sells them [amazon.com] - that means it can only be good, right?

Right?

*nudge nudge wink wink*

np: Anthony Rother - Liquid System (My Name Is Beuys Von Telekraft)

Is ALL Denon suspect?

[hirschma]

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?

Re:Is ALL Denon suspect?

[Xyrus]

Dear Friend,

You should be aware that clues are classified as dangerous, and should only be used by trained professionals.

The training to use clues is fairly rigorous and intense, and therefore few of the general public actually have clues.

In fact, GWB has been a great forward thinker in this regard. The actions of his administration, along with help of the media conglomerates have almost eliminated the threat of untrained civilians accidentally stumbling upon, obtaining, or using clues.

We must be ever vigilant in this matter, as clues are direct threat to our way of life. It may be hard to stop getting clues once you start, but think of your family and loved ones. They will help you through this trying and difficult time.

Be aware that there are groups and individuals out there who knowingly distribute clues. They can be family members or friends. They may even be in our schools, despite our best efforts to eliminate clues before children get them.

If you suspect someone of having a clue, here are some warning signs to look out for:

1. Strange behavior, such as exhibiting common sense or disagreeing with a News personality.

2. A peculiar need for facts.

3. Indifference to important events, such as who is currently winning American Idol.

If you, or someone you know has a clue, you should contact the Clue Crisis Center immediately. The people there are trained professionals and will be able to handle clues appropriately. Clues can spread quickly, without warning, and may cause sudden outbreaks of common sense if left untreated so speed is of the essence, especially if you may have come in contact with a clue recently.

Once again I thank you for your support in this matter as a patriotic American. This is a War On Clues, and for the sake of our country we must be victorious.

Sincerely,
The Department of Homeland Ignorance

Re:Is ALL Denon suspect?

[ScrewMaster]

There are very few established brands anymore. Unfortunately for us and the Europeans, China has been using our brand-consciousness against us for some years now. Old-line American audio equipment manufacturers like Marantz sold their names and are now just marketing fronts. The point being, a particular model from a particular maker may be good quality and worth the money, but you can no longer depend upon branding as a reliable indicator of quality. You need to do your research first before you plunk down your money (good advice in any event, but it's especially true today.)

Compatibility?

[Sponge Bath]

The PDF user's manual does not specify if works with my 1975 Sears all-in-one turntable, tuner and 8-track console.
You can't find that kind of fidelity anymore, at any price.

Signal directional markings

[Myria]

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

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

Warranty? What warranty?

[KarMann]

While we're on the subject of their "attention to detail" like "empoying" that others have pointed out, I also see that if you click their "View new product warranty" link, you'll find that... it's not even listed in the products that have any warranty whatsoever! I had been thinking, "damn, if that's a $500 cable, it better either be a couple of football fields long, or have a several century warranty," but no, a crappy 1.5m and no warranty.

Confession:

[regular_gonzalez]

I actually own one of these. Unfortunately it got bent and now some of the 1s get stuck because they don't slide through the bent area as easily as the 0s :(

Now I think I've seen it all...

[analog_line]

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

The first ethernet cable ever with racing stripes.

Someone PLEASE tell me that this is a huge joke.

I've figured out the "exclusive difference"...

[Chmarr]

They're not wiring the cable using EIA-568...

If you go to "other pictures" and then the "inside" view, see how they're connecting the cable pairs to the connector: rather than the green pair going to pins 3 and 6 (as per normal EIA-568), they're going to pins 5 and 6.

That will actually reduce crosstalk the tiniest of smidgins (that's a technical term!).

Now, of course, it's MORE likely just a non-impeccable representation, and they ARE wiring it up using normal EIA-568... but wouldn't it be funny if that's the difference they're claiming is "all worth it". Geez... for $500, they could have just commissioned AMP or Foxconn to make a custom connector for them, no?

Reviews

[flanktwo]

Check out the Amazon reviews [amazon.com]!

Ethernet is NOT a cable!

[Dahamma]

This is an RJ45 cable. Actually, to be precise it's an RJ45 connector with an 8-wire cable (unknown if it's even a twisted pair cable, though I'd imagine so). Actually, to be really precise it's not even officially RJ45 but why go into that...

RJ45 cables are used for the ubiquitous 100BASE-TX Ethernet, of course, but also for plenty of other applications, some of them not even digital (for example, long distance transmission of component video signals).

I'm not saying that a $500 RJ45 twisted pair cable is not absurd, just that there ARE applications where a higher quality cable would make a difference; try running a 100m 1080i (analog) component video connection over $1/ft RJ45 and see how it looks compared to something better built for the job.

That said, looking at the intended use ("Denon-Link") it seems to be multichannel 192kbps PCM audio, hence $500 for 1.5m is obviously a total waste of money.

Ok, end rant. Point is, nothing about this cable or any of its uses has the SLIGHTEST thing to do with Ethernet, but now everyone seems to think Denon is selling a cable to stream MP3s over your home LAN (yeah, a 1.5m cable would be really useful for that...) Sigh, why is it that I expect more from /. editors and readers on these types of stories!?

At the very least...

[Nullav]

It is a pretty shade of blue. :o

For those of you who think it's gotta be a typo...

[The Famous Druid]

Check out http://www.dedicatedaudio.com/interconnect_cable [dedicatedaudio.com]
The have several cables that make $499 look cheap.

Holy gravy on a potato!

[Fantastic Lad]

I'd heard of this phenomenon before, but didn't really take it too seriously.

So I took a wander over to the site you linked and discovered the following item description for one of their most expensive cables, (and this isn't even for signal balanced cable pairs, which actually do prevent the causing of inductance-based interference in surrounding cables. What's being sold here are just garden variety audio wires. Made of gold.)

Details:
Golden Reference is the latest evolutionary interconnect design by George Cardas. It features Cardas patented Golden Section, multi-gauge stranding in a symmetrical, helical tri-axial design. Thin wall, Teflon® air tubes are used as dielectric and provide air suspension for the conductors. Cardas patented, Constant-Q construction places the smallest of the Golden Ratio strands at the center of the conductor to reduce stored energy and conductor resonance. Cable resonance is further reduced with controlled propagation, Crossfield construction, matching conductor to dielectric characteristics with carefully computed strand layering. Multi-layer shielding and cross layered conductors reduce EMI and RFI to a new low. All conductors are individually coated to insulate and prevent oxidation. Golden Reference is a perfectly neutral reference cable. It sounds the same at any length, between any component, at any originating or terminating impedance. Golden Reference is perfectly symmetrical and non-directional. Like all Cardas cables, Golden Reference is individually inspected, and hand terminated using Rhodium plated connectors and Cardas formulated Quad Eutectic solder, for a lifetime of listening pleasure.

Wow! I got scared just reading that. They sure know how to make you feel insecure about your audio signal! --The price for security in plugs and wires? $4358 for twenty feet of cable! I bet you could sell some of these around the White House. (Just had to get a political dig in.)

I am stunned. I am clearly in the wrong business. I should be selling wires to rubes. Of course, I can't imagine that would do much for one's self esteem. George Cardas either doesn't sleep well at night, or he can talk up a real shit-storm when you challenge him on his ridiculous product line. . !

-FL

Randi to the rescue!

[jpbelang]

James Randi: http://www.randi.org/jr/2007-09/092807reply.html#i4 [randi.org]

When challenged, Pear cables chickened out.

I checked. Pear cables did not go out of business.

they are amazing

[speedtux]

I'm an audiophile, and I have to tell you, these cables are AMAZING. They bring out nuances in the sound that you never knew were there. Listen to a recording of the Brandenburg Concertos in the classic 1972 vinyl recording with the Berlin Philharmonica, and you'll swear you're sitting there with Christian Ludwig right in the room, hearing his every borborygmus and flatus. These cables are so subtle that they even allow you to separate the overtones from the bass notes of his snart! And the Goldberg Variations with Glenn Gould... just breathtaking. You hear every note he sings (and the piano is pretty good, too).

Usability is great, too: you'll never spend half an hour wondering which way to plug these things in, since the marking on them finally make it clear that it doesn't matter; now, why didn't anybody think of that before?

If you're an audio professional, these cables will pay for themselves in a week. And if you're a serious amateur, they'll give you an audio experience you won't soon forget.

(-; for the humor impaired)

Read the Amazon reviews, they're hilarious

[John Jorsett]

It gets me closer to the Lord [amazon.com]:

If I could use a rusty boxcutter to carve a new orifice in my body that's compatible with this link cable, I would already be doing it. I can just imagine the pure musical goodness that would flow through this cable into the wound and fill me completely -- like white, holy light. Holding this cable in my hands actually makes me feel that much closer to the Lord Jesus Christ. I only make $6.25/hr at Jack In The Box, but I saved up for three months so I could have this cable. It sits in a shrine I constructed next to my futon in Mother's basement.

I only gave it four stars in my review because I can't find music that is worthy enough to flow through this utterly perfect interconnect.

Disappointing quality [amazon.com]

I was disappointed. I consider myself an audiophile - I regularly spend over $1000 on cables to get the ultimate sound. I keep my music-listening room in a Faraday cage to prevent any interference that could alter my music-listening experience. Sending any signal down ordinary copper can degrade the signal considerably. While ordinary listeners might not notice, to somebody with even a rudimentary knowledge of sound, the artifacts are glaring. Denon should have used silver wiring (hermetically sealed inside the rubber sheath to prevent any tarnishing, of course), which has a significantly higher conductivity than copper. Furthermore, Denon needs to treat the wires they use in the cable with a polarity inductor to ensure minimal phase variance.

Needless to say, I returned the cable and wrote an angry letter to the so-called engineers at Denon.

Confusion

[DeanFox]

I was watching _HomeTime_ a generic DYI TV show and they were doing a home theater. When it came to the cables the host is shown choosing Monster cables from the shelf pretty much saying it's best to go with the higher quality just to be sure. Less expensive options were available but his explanation and tone was one of better safe than sorry.

On their show recap Monster is listed http://www.hometime.com/TV/pastshow/pastshows/1995/theater.htm [hometime.com] as the cable supplier.

Monster is probably a paid advertiser but no other explanation was given for the high price other than better safe than sorry. I cringed but not everybody understands this magic called technology like most /. users do. They're confused and most expensive is generally related to better.

And Monster cables are better quality. It's not like they're lying. It just doesn't matter. If they'd compare it to something they understand something like the light bulb doesn't care about the quality of the light switch.

-[d]-

Re:Someone will ask for it

[mikesd81]

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

Re:Audiophiles

[belmolis]

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

Re:Audiophiles

[gardyloo]

Perhaps. What's it go to?

Re:Audiophiles

[Antibozo]

No, no, no. It goes to 11.

Re:Audiophiles

[Alsee]

I want my knobs to go to Pi.
I know, it's an irrational desire.

-

Re:...This got greenlit?

[erudified]

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:...This got greenlit?

[maxume]

You could always start selling cables that cost $599.

How could they *not* be better?

Re:...This got greenlit?

[maxume]

I store them in gold lined boxes to prevent space radiation from degrading them.

Also, they are manufactured in harmony with the orbit of the moon, so the lunar cycle does not impact the quality of audio fed over them.

Finally, the meteoric metal mixed into the alloy used for the cables gives them the power of the universe, preventing them from aging.

Re:...This got greenlit?

[neomunk]

Nope, undercutting doesn't work on the target demographic for these kinds of 'specialty purchases'. You must always charge MORE, as cost is directly indicative of perceived quality. There is simply no other worldly explanation for 500 dollar ethernet cables, short of very large ones.

Re:Wow.

[mikael]

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.