Reflections on cable pricing insanity

edorr · Mar 14, 2013

it is no big secret that to be taken seriously as a cable manufacturer these days, you need to carry at least one pair of five figure speakercable and interconnects in your product line, and preferably a $5,000 powercord. Never mind margins on this cable are probably in the 90% range. In need of some new cabling I have been looking around a bit recently, and am happy to report that one company is going the exact opposite direction. Let's all hope they succeed.

Shunyata's top of the line IC / SC (Aeros Aurora) used to be $7.5K, $15K respectively. Witnessing the madness taking over their industry, I suspect their product / marketing guys sat down and decided that rather than joing the fray they would go against it. So they put out the Zitron line, which tops out at (not unsubstantial) $3K for their anaconda cords, and which according to someone that heard both easily beats their former $7.5K IC.

Further, I am in contact with two dealers that recently decided to start carrying the Shunyata line, declaring it hands down the best value for money cable on the market today. I will be trying out two pairs of their interconnects shortly, in a shootout against my Transparent Reference cables, probably the biggest instigator of cable pricing madness.

So, I hope to be able to sell my Transparents cables shortly and go Shunyata all around my system. For powercables even the older models have already proven to be best in class performers. I hope the ICs live up to expectations as well. Even the digital cables have been highly acclaimed.

Stay tuned for Transparent / Shuntata shootout results. Should the Transparents prevail after all, oh well .....

ack · Mar 14, 2013

Well said, and good thread. As I started reading your first paragraph, my first reaction was: not Shunyata

microstrip · Mar 14, 2013

ack said:
Well said, and good thread. As I started reading your first paragraph, my first reaction was: not Shunyata

I also own and like Shunyata cables and find it a great company (even Samuel Grant friendly answers to my mails) , but find curious how some one arguing for price sanity can refer to a company marketing a usd 3000 power cable and an usd 5000 power conditioner ...

IMHO, we are all audio sinners - although we feel good when we find a reason to justify why our sin is smaller than that of our neighbor.

edorr · Mar 14, 2013

microstrip said:
I also own and like Shunyata cables and find it a great company (even Samuel Grant friendly answers to my mails) , but find curious how some one arguing for price sanity can refer to a company marketing a usd 3000 power cable and an usd 5000 power conditioner ...

IMHO, we are all audio sinners - although we feel good when we find a reason to justify why our sin is smaller than that of our neighbor.

Here is the difference. Cables costing a few grand have been around for ages. If they represent the state of the art - no problem with that.

However, the trend is for manufacturers to start selling $15,000 cables as their top of the line cable. I suspect they could still make a decents margin selling the same cable for $3-4K, but deliberately market to the small demographic that apparently gets a certain level of gratification of being able to afford $15K cables (no problem with that either - may be if I had that kind of money I would join their ranks).

I think Shunyata is deliberately bucking this trend (they actually explicitly say so in their marketing message), and keep their reference cable at the $3K pricepoint, below where it has been historically.

FrantzM · Mar 14, 2013

Very interesting. We'll see how long this will hold.

edorr · Mar 14, 2013

FrantzM said:
Very interesting. We'll see how long this will hold.

How long what will hold?

FrantzM · Mar 14, 2013

Some semblance of sanity in cable pricing. Should have said "last".

edorr · Mar 14, 2013

FrantzM said:
Some semblance of sanity in cable pricing. Should have said "last".

If Shunyata ends up selling lots of cables, others may follow suite. If dealers start picking up the line, recommending the Shunyata cords and dropping their insanely priced lines interesting things may happen.

WLVCA · Mar 14, 2013

Monoprice.

edorr · Mar 14, 2013

WLVCA said:
Monoprice.

Great outfit. I bought some cable and other stuff (HDMI switcher!) from them for all my "less critical" applications, including in-wall cable.

rockitman · Mar 14, 2013

Shouldn't cables be purchased on the basis of sound and system match rather than based on price ?

A $3k speaker cable may sound better than a $10k cable in one system and then the opposite occurs in another system. What really seems outrageous is the price of cables that have little engineering involved other than decisions regarding metallurgy, guage, dielectric and winding pattern. Those same decisions are made in $1000 cables up to $40,000 cables....Siltech double crown for ie. The engineering has changed little in 20 years. Network designs, on the other hand are engineered way beyond the run of the mill straight wire conductor models that permeate the market at huge swings in price level.They are not cheap either, but to me deliver real value in sound satisfaction for the money. YMMV.

edorr · Mar 14, 2013

rockitman said:
Shouldn't cables be purchased on the basis of sound and system match rather than based on price ?

Both. Typically, you shop for the best system match / best sounding cable within your budget range. My current predicament is I need one 1.5m XLR IC. I can buy another Transparent Reference (MSRP $5K). Or try Shunyata Zitron Anaconda's and replace all my cabling with the latter if they outperform the Transparents (in my system). Both are within budget range (provided I can find a heavily discounted or used transparent cable). Going up one level in the Transparent lineup (XL level) is out of my budget range.

I don't have the patience to go through tons of different cables to find the best match in my system in my budget range, so I'll limit my expiriment to trying the Shunyatas.

flez007 · Mar 14, 2013

I heard an interesting demo some years back with Galen Carol at San Antonio, TX on Shunyata cables, both speaker and AC. Shunyata is on my top-5 list taking always the consideration of synergy with one system that Christian noted above.

Whatmore · Mar 14, 2013

Good on them for bringing the price down.
It does beg the question though: how have they managed to produce a superior cable and sell it for less than half the price?

edorr · Mar 14, 2013

Whatmore said:
Good on them for bringing the price down.
It does beg the question though: how have they managed to produce a superior cable and sell it for less than half the price?

How did Oppo produce a better Universal player than players costing a multiple that came before them? R&D and economies of scale.

In the case of cabling you can slash prices by 75% and still make money, so the new shunyata cords probably have a lot lower margin than their ultra expensive older cables. But major improvement in performance simply as a result of R&D should come as no surprise.

Elberoth · Mar 14, 2013

Havent tried the Anaconda Ztron ICs, but the Anaconda Ztron speaker cable is terific. I have recently tried several speaker cables in that price range, and the Shunyata was easlily the best. A Very well balanced cable, with excellent soundstaging and resolution. I bought one.

microstrip · Mar 14, 2013

I have been following Shunyata cables since long. For long they manufactured great cables, most of them representing very good value for money, such as the Orion and Antares lines. Their previous line was not a success, perhaps the opposite. They ventured in the very expensive cable market, and the cables were not competitive. In order to re-enter the cable market they had to completely change their strategy and marketing - it is what they are wisely doing now - as they had no success in a market range they are depreciating it. I have not yet listened to the new Anaconda's - as far as I have been told they are excellent in their price range but they are not in the Odin or TA Opus range in the systems that can be enhanced by these cables. This is just my view of the situation. Yours will probably be different.

Curious that everyone speaks about Shunyata, but sometime ago I asked about the Cardas Clear, that follows a similar pricing, but got almost no feedback. Not enough marketing?

Elberoth · Mar 14, 2013

microstrip said:
For long they manufactured great cables, most of them representing very good value for money, such as the Orion and Antares lines. Their previous line was not a success, perhaps the opposite. They ventured in the very expensive cable market, and the cables were not competitive.

I agree 100%. The Orion and Antares were very good - perhaps not the greatest cables in absolute terms, but thet did offer an excellent value for money. Then the Aurora came, and that was a disaster.

Sammy T · Mar 14, 2013

How about Tara Labs? 15K for a 1 Meter interconnect new. Resale value , maybe 5 to 6K used. That's a hard one to take on the chin.

edorr · Mar 14, 2013

Sammy T said:
How about Tara Labs? 15K for a 1 Meter interconnect new. Resale value , maybe 5 to 6K used. That's a hard one to take on the chin.

So you buy used for $5K and let the other guy be the sucker......

Reflections on cable pricing insanity

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