New $24,000 inter-connect


I just saw a new Audiogon listing for a $24,000 inter-connect by Matthew Bond (Tara Labs). How many ya gonna order?
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I could care less what the rich blow their big bucks on. The problem I have is the fact that the sham of $20K+ IC cables is an insult to the legitimate manufactures and designers of fine audio gear, that's price tag has some relation, in actual value, to the price charged.
It's my fear that sound engineering and equitable good products will give way to bogus claims and inflated prices and that will become the new norm of the fading HEA.

As an avid outdoors-man, I have spent a good deal of $$$ over the years, to buy quality gear. Along with expensive fire arms and scopes, one of my favorite items is a pair of $2,200. Swarovski EL binoculars - now valued at about $3,000.00. Some of the best field optics in the world are made by Swarovski and Lica and unlike magic cables, their products have a lifetime warranty and hold their value. In either case their best binoculars and field scopes (coveted by outdoors-men and professional field workers around the world) range from around $2.5K - $3.5K for binocs and $3K - $4K for field scopes. Doubtful that either of these fine companies would ever stoop to the level of some audio cable makers and come up with the idea they can build a pair of glasses and claim to have optics coated with graphene, moon dust and dark matter, so they can stick a $24K price tag on them to satisfy the egos of the rich......Jim 

That's the thing, it's all relative I originally went from a Radio Shack interconnect to a $100 Duelund. That's a multiplier of about 50x.

Is it better than the Radio Shack cable?
@ketchup 
That's the thing, it's all relative I originally went from a Radio Shack interconnect to a $100 Duelund. That's a multiplier of about 50x.

It's only relative to a point. Beyond that point, it becomes a lie and a sham.
Dueland's $100.00 un-shielded cable is actually quite good for a reasonable cost and their $120.00 shielded cable is also decent, if you need shielding. Shielding on IC cables usually does more harm than good and the layers and layers of fancy wrapping and garbage that the high dollar cable dudes sleeve over their China made, mediocre conductors, is a farce. There are few 1M ICs that would sound much better than what you have and 0 that would sound 2,400 times better.
Rest well knowing you have a quite decent set of cables and enjoy the music......Jim

The percentage argument is a common one, but ignores an important issue. A $100 cable is 10 times the price of a $10 one, the dollar amount of that difference being $90. A $1,000 cable is also 10 times the price of a $100 one, but the dollar amount of THAT difference is $900. The $90 and $900 dollar amount of difference bear the same percentage relationship to each other as do the prices of the two groups of cables, but my opinion is the $810 difference makes the cases quite different.

I have no idea how much a system would need to cost to make a single $24,000 cable proportionately justifiable. And that assumes the cable's price is proportionate to it's sound quality, a mighty big assumption. 

Here we are in 2019 and I remain amused at the justice warriors throwing out rulings such as;
"a farce, marketing hype, non-essential indulgence, gullible, bogus claims, insult (to working people), insult (to "legitimate" manufacturers), defies common sense, a lie and a sham....etc., etc...."
In the absence of fraud or some other illegality, whether people buy these high-priced cables (or fuses, or cars, or clothes, or art, or wine, etc.) becomes simply a value proposition. Some (maybe most here) would argue when you purchase cables you are paying for a sonic outcome....i.e., how do the cables affect the "sound" of your system? Others seem to believe the price of something must bear a relationship to the cost of the parts and materials, or must meet some standard of affordability to the masses. However, value is subjective and in the case of high-priced cables the evaluation of a purchase could include appearance, status, or other reasons in addition to the sonic effect. How can anyone judge the value an item holds for another individual, when value is both personal and subjective. There are people who might pay $50K for a work of art that I wouldn’t trade a cup of coffee for. OTOH, if I pay $10K for a bicycle, I am sure there are many that cannot envision the value of that.....don’t they all have two wheels, two pedals, and roll down the road? We all vote with our wallets and (in the absence of fraud or some other illegality) that is how our system of free enterprise works. In the wise words of @jsautter ;
"To ascribe a limit to what a component should cost is truly a fool’s errand and I cant possibly guess what would be the motivation to make such a judgement."
Or, in the words of @rja ;
"Why don’t you guys turn your attention to something worth discussing?"