Why are good cables expensive ?

inspiredsports

I just had a random thought: I wonder what they argue about in snake oil forums. I wonder if the do double-blind and ABX testing on it.

Random factoid from Wikipedia: Snake fat (oil) played a role in ancient Egyptian medicine, mixed with the fats of lion, hippopotamus, crocodile, tomcat, and Nubian ibex into a homogeneous mass believed to cause bald men to grow hair. (I wonder if it helped them grow hair on their palms, or if they stopped that so they didn't go blind?).

cokewithvanilla

You might have found their secret... mit cables contain a higher volume of snake oil per foot than any other cable... in fact, those boxes are just full of it (that's the only way you'll get that much snake oil into one cable!) .

inspiredsports

cokewithvanilla wrote: »

You might have found their secret... mit cables contain a higher volume of snake oil per foot than any other cable... in fact, those boxes are just full of it (that's the only way you'll get that much snake oil into one cable!) .

That must be why I have absolutely NO JOINT PAIN and a FULL HEAD OF HAIR in my mid-fifties :biggrin:

Schurkey

tonyb wrote: »

Why do they cost more ?

For the same reason anything of quality costs more. You want a quality car, it costs more, a quality pair of shoes....costs more. People will pay a premium for quality products across the board. Why is this concept so foreign ?

Because it presumes that increased price assures increased quality/performance.

The truth is that increased price MAY denote higher quality/performance, but higher price usually assures nothing but improved profit or improved profit margins.

A person is DAMNED LUCKY to "get what he paid for" in the best of industries, and audiophile cables 'n' tweaks is pretty much a whole 'nother world.

It is absolutely true that:
genuine quality is going to cost more than crap.
made-In-USA is going to cost more than Communist-sourced garbage; or for that matter, "Hencho en Mexico".
gold costs more than silver which costs more than copper which costs more then aluminum which costs more than steel. But silver and copper are better conductors than gold...if they aren't corroded.

It is equally true that as long as emotion is used as a sales tool, prices DO NOT have to reflect quality, they can just as easily reflect greed, cunning, deception, half-truths, and "what the market will bear" in terms of the buyer's appreciation of status symbols, self-deception, and ego. The entire marketing profession is little more than scientifically separating the fool and his money. Pseudo-science as a sales tool WORKS, and is rampant in the industry. Beware ANY company that relies on "testimonials" as a sales tool.

Sorting out genuine quality from marketing-inspired "perceived quality" is very difficult when we don't even have a vocabulary that we can agree on. What the hell does "inner detail", "pace", and all those other audiophile descriptors REALLY mean?

I do not expect a day when cable packaging includes some verifiable and standardized specification for L/C/R and noise.

tonyb

Not really my good man, what it presumes is that you know wtf your buying and have done some sort of homework as to the quality of the merchandise you hope to acquire.
Testimonials are a tool used to sell product....in many fields. The validity of such is suspect in many though. Thats where an informed consumer comes in. Marketing by design is to get you to buy a product, thats their job. It's up to you,and always will be, to be the most informed as possible before throwing down your hard earned coin. I'm not just talking cables here.
Look gents, I can't argue that snake oil doesn't exist, because it does, in almost everything, but you can't paint the cable industry with such a broad brush that would say above x amount of dollars is all snake oil. Problem comes in when you have to decipher what is snake oil and what isn't. You have to get your feet wet and try some different cables to see for yourself, otherwise your just blowing in the wind with snake oil theories.

F1nut

cstmar01 wrote: »

people don't think and this is such a stupid thread.

An astute observation.

Schurkey wrote: »

What the hell does "inner detail", "pace", and all those other audiophile descriptors REALLY mean?

There's no hidden meaning.

I do not expect a day when cable packaging includes some verifiable and standardized specification for L/C/R and noise.

I hope not too as that info cannot tell you how a cable will sound in your system.

TECHNOKID

With my purchase of MIT exp2 being 4 times less than the msrp and acknowledging they're still turning a profit . It makes me wonder where the bulk of the cost goes when a manufacturer puts out a msrp ?

I guess many are not getting the OP's point, right? Legitimate question, why same cables (in this case MIT), MSRP being 4 times the price that the OP paid and knowing a profit was made on his purchase?

Nothing to do with US or Chinese manufacturing (unless MIT has multiple standards for their cables?). NOT at all stupid thread, quite the opposite the only stupidity is answers from some getting on their high horse because they paid too much for theirs? :rolleyes: I do not buy either that the same cable (still talking about MIT MSRP's being 4 times the price then what the actual buyer paid for) will not be a big deal to the people with that kind of coins. Doesn't the people with that possess that kind of coins usually acquire that kind of coins by being wise with their coins (unless someone was born before them, right?).

To answer the OP, IMHO either your cables MSRs are boosted as hell (abusive mark-up) or the cables you bought are copies-imitation. I could not answer this as I will not bother wasting that kind of coins on brand name cables, be Mon$ter or MIT. However, let me assure you your thread is NOT stupid but legitimate so carry on

Toolfan66

How does one know MIT made a profit??? Did one ever think that giving such a deal ws just better then scraping them?? We have done this at the shop, let's say at the shop one of my guys lasered an extra sheet of parts that my customer did not order, humm if I scrap the material not only do I scrap material I scrap the labor and overhead. If I call the customer and ask him if he can or would like the extra parts at a better price? And he says he can use them, well the customer just got a killer deal and the company didn't take such a big hit by scraping the parts.. How hard is it to understand that???

ysss

They're expensive because there are buyers who believe in their sales pitch.

arun1963

Over here, 87 octane gas = $ 4.30 per gallon. 92 octane with sludge busters and magic snake oil = 4.75 per gallon. Gives better power, engine runs cleaner and you get better mileage. So I Tank up on the 92 octane.

Now if the 92 octane was $47.50 per gallon...............................

ysss

arun1963 wrote: »

Now if the 92 octane was $47.50 per gallon...............................

....and you bought it.....

....you'd convince yourself that it makes your car 10x as fast?

otherwise you'd be a sucker for paying 10x for something that can be purchased for much less.

arun1963

ysss wrote: »

....and you bought it.....

....you'd convince yourself that it makes your car 10x as fast?

otherwise you'd be a sucker for paying 10x for something that can be purchased for much less.

The point I was making is that I would pay the 40 cents extra for perceived benefits but I wouldn't buy the 93 octane if it cost 10X the price of 87 octane.......