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$500 Ethernet cable is designed for loaded morons
OK, here's a piece of advice for you tech buyers out there next time you're at your friendly neighborhood Best Buy: don't, under any circumstances, spend $500 on a 1.5 meter Ethernet cable. Ever. Overpriced cables are nothing new, but this takes things to a whole new level.
Yes, Denon has the stones to sell this "Ultra Premium Denon Link Cable" for a whopping $499, claiming that it was designed for the audio enthusiast. Yes, it's an Ethernet cable, and no, your signal won't get any faster or clearer or better or sexier with these. It's kind of mindblowing, actually. There's probably $5 worth of materials in these things and, inevitably, some rich jackass will buy it, giving Denon $495 for their sleazy marketing. It doesn't get much more egregious than this, my friends. Avoid at all costs.
Denon, via Consumerist
By jnemesh at 2:21 PM ON 06/13/08
If you dont like it, don't buy it. But don't knock a cable until you have HEARD it! The gear that supports Denon Link is premium gear, $2500 DVD players and $5000 A/V recievers, etc. The person buying this type of gear is often more interested in getting every last bit of performance rather than skimping quality to get a lower price. Just for the record, while Denon Link has an RJ-45 connector, it is a shielded cable and the protocol over the cable is proprietary, it is NOT TCP/IP. Do your research before you say there is no difference. And by research, I mean an actual blind listening test. Anything less and you are just sounding ignorant.
By chillout at 4:22 PM ON 06/13/08
jnemesh relax. What is the material used inside the cable? Gold? I do not think so. This is overprices and we all know so calm down.
By Enthusiastor at 5:42 PM ON 06/13/08
Chillout, it may be overpriced for you when setting up your LAN for a Starcraft session, but for someone that has a need for extra quality in their top of the line set-up, I don't think this is any less unreasonable than spending more than a grand on a DVD player. Just because it doesn't fit for you, doesn't make it wrong. If I had the money to burn for premium gear that, at worst, eeked out only a 1% difference in quality than the regular goods, that's still 1% I'd want... if again, I had money to burn.
By jnemesh at 5:45 PM ON 06/13/08
No, I don't agree that it is overpriced, and I am very relaxed. These cables are priced based on performance, NOT materials used. If you LISTEN to the cables in a blind test you will see, until you LISTEN and COMPARE you have no grounds to call the cables overpriced, PERIOD!
By Relax at 9:46 PM ON 06/13/08
These cables are overpriced. You can listen to them all day and the sound quality is improved minimally. So if you wish to buy a cable that is $500, go for it. I work in a environment with stp and utp and all stp does is reduce the noise not improve the sound.
By ignorant at 1:34 PM ON 06/14/08
Have anyone in the 'blind listening test only' fangroup thought about how exacly the sound is modified, when the digital bits go through a cable UNCHANGED? Just asking ...
By BESTBUY at 5:10 AM ON 06/16/08
Best Buy's mark up is astronomical. A monster brand cable costs the store 23.80 and they then mark the price to 89.99
By kubiaka at 6:18 PM ON 06/16/08
This is simple people. You can get lossless digital transmission with a cable you make yourself with shielded wire for around $5 with really nice jacketed ends and everything and as long as the signal is completely lossless (at 1.5 meters this is not difficult to accomplish) then it would create the exact same transfer as the $500 cable they are using to transfer the data. I'm sorry for the Denon fanboys out there, but there is no way, even if each one of these cables was hand braided by an American Union worker that these would be worth $500.
By chesterqw at 5:10 AM ON 07/01/08
jnemesh is funny.
that is just a lousy ethernet cable.
if you want to compare sound quality, you compare with REAL analog signal cables.
oh right... it is tcp/ip... how did you know?
did you measure it?
did you use it before?
do you have it?
NO you don't.
empty argue...
By Morton at 1:25 AM ON 11/24/08
Does it come in 10km Length?
By GREENIE at 8:27 PM ON 11/25/08
No, because then it would have to be over $3.3m and Denon don't want their products to be too underpriced.
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GREENIE:
No, because then it would have to be over $3.3m and Denon don't want their products to be too underpriced....More »