Reflections on cable pricing insanity

[Bruce B]

Well, here is the definition of insanity to me. MIT raised prices on their MA-X SHD bi wire speaker cable by almost $12,000 today to $53,499.00!.

Bruce must have been reading this thread!!

 

[edorr]

Bruce must have been reading this thread!!

Who would take a $40K cable seriously? At $53K this is a winner again. Expect Transparent to jack up pricing of the Opus to $60K shortly to reclaim leadership status.

 

[FrantzM]

Who would take a $40K cable seriously? At $53K this is a winner again. Expect Transparent to jack up pricing of the Opus to $60K shortly to reclaim leadership status.

moving steadily toward $100 K ...

 

[edorr]

moving steadily toward $100 K ...

If you bi-wire you're alreaddy there.

 

[microstrip]

Who would take a $40K cable seriously? At $53K this is a winner again. Expect Transparent to jack up pricing of the Opus to $60K shortly to reclaim leadership status.

It would be great! But only after I manage to get an used Opus speaker cable tuned for my system for a nice price ...

 

[microstrip]

If you bi-wire you're alreaddy there.

Even better - the Q7's, Aida's and TheSonusFaber's can be tri-wired.

 

[JackD201]

Way too rich for my blood. Way too rich.

 

[edorr]

Even better - the Q7's, Aida's and TheSonusFaber's can be tri-wired.

Dave Wilson bi-wired the Alexias for the first public demo with two pair of Opus for a grand total of >$100K MSRP. He probably paid a little less - may be manufacturer cost at around $3-4K....

 

[lasercd]

Concurrent with following this thread since the beginning, I demoed a pair of Transparent Audio Reference XL speaker cables into my system. WOW! Not surprisingly the Rockport Aquila love them. The cables have found a home. In fact I have Reference XL interconnects and TA power cords on the way to try out.

Crazy expensive but sometimes you do get what you pay for.

 

[edorr]

Concurrent with following this thread since the beginning, I demoed a pair of Transparent Audio Reference XL speaker cables into my system. WOW! Not surprisingly the Rockport Aquila love them. The cables have found a home. In fact I have Reference XL interconnects and TA power cords on the way to try out.

Crazy expensive but sometimes you do get what you pay for.

It is nice to be able to afford insanity. It appears at least you get better sound, while say a $100K watch does not give you better time.

 

[FrantzM]

Concurrent with following this thread since the beginning, I demoed a pair of Transparent Audio Reference XL speaker cables into my system. WOW! Not surprisingly the Rockport Aquila love them. The cables have found a home. In fact I have Reference XL interconnects and TA power cords on the way to try out.

Crazy expensive but sometimes you do get what you pay for.

It is nice to be able to afford insanity. It appears at least you get better sound, while say a $100K watch does not give you better time.

There you go ... Sticker shock a thing of the past ...

 

[Bruce B]

There you go ... Sticker shock a thing of the past ...

That's how I got my wife acclimated to the world of high-end!!

 

[edorr]

That's how I got my wife acclimated to the world of high-end!!

I will defer to this thread if my wife ever finds out what I paid for my (mid-priced) cables.

 

[AMP]

Concurrent with following this thread since the beginning, I demoed a pair of Transparent Audio Reference XL speaker cables into my system. WOW! Not surprisingly the Rockport Aquila love them. The cables have found a home. In fact I have Reference XL interconnects and TA power cords on the way to try out.

Crazy expensive but sometimes you do get what you pay for.

I warned you

The Power Isolator MM is really nice too....

 

[rockitman]

even my girl noticed a big difference with my ridiculously priced speaker cables. After hearing the price, she want's me to pay for a new car...lol

 

[MarinJim]

I took a 2nd hand TA digicable home from the dealer with 99% expectation of just keeping it. Took me twenty minutes of surprise to realize i was falling asleep listening to it...i could not understand. TA are my favorite cables. i did not understand it. I was really expecting to like it, and i preferred my Cardas Neutral. Went back and the dealer gave me a 2nd hand Valhalla...i called him from home after putting it in and gave him my credit card over the phone.

So surprising...just my own personal experience. I have heard great things about the TA Ref digital cable...and i am sure it is great in other systems. In any event, i use an i2s cable now between my Transport and DAC...but still have the Valhalla between my Oppo and my DAC for movies.

I had a TA Reference RCA digital cable for 6 months, and have their hdmi also. Sold the digital cable because it did not do anything for me. It is reference in name only, IMHO.

 

[Frank750]

even my girl noticed a big difference with my ridiculously priced speaker cables. After hearing the price, she want's me to pay for a new car...lol

Let me get this straight, she asked you the price and you told her the truth???????

 

[Bruce B]

And with the mark-up on these cables you'd think the reps would be "johnny on the spot" if you asked to demo a pair. Not so with asking someone if I could try them with my new Alexia's.

 

[edorr]

even my girl noticed a big difference with my ridiculously priced speaker cables. After hearing the price, she want's me to pay for a new car...lol

I had to offset my Evolution Acoustics MM3's purchase with a new Toyota Sienna. No way would I mention the actual price I paid though. I did casually mention I sold my Avalon's at a profit to keep the peace.

 

[edorr]

I had a TA Reference RCA digital cable for 6 months, and have their hdmi also. Sold the digital cable because it did not do anything for me. It is reference in name only, IMHO.

I own four of them (3 x AES/EBU + 1 x S/PDIF). They appear to work very will in my system.