Are audiophiles still out of their minds?

Jond, almost everything is subjective in high end, including the price of cables.  $375 for cables is IMO reasonable.  Now is your cable really worth the original asking price of $2000?  May be or may be not, given you never saved up to buy them for the original price. Now, if the cable manufacturer decided to charge $10k for them, what would you say even with the improvement it made to your system?

Geoffkit, the auditioned cables were supposed to be fully broken in at more than 600 hours of play.  I mean arguing about break in is almost meaningless because some will argue you will need more than 1000 hrs or some will say not more than 24 hrs. 

Almarg, points well taken.  But not sure how much logic or reason is involved in purchasing mega expensive cables.

I totally understand both sides of the cable argument. For years I was very judicious with regard to how much I spent on cables and power cords. As the quality of my system improved the more noticeable the changes in cabling became.

One year at the RMAF I went to a workshop on cables. The point of the workshop was based on the benefits and synergies of having "consistent" cabling throughout one’s system. The demonstration was eye opening. From that point on, I made it a goal to work towards that end game. The next step was to find a cable/ cord manufacturer that I liked, trusted, and most importantly felt was a reasonable "value". I’m sure that the big name cable manufacturers make solid products but I wasn’t convinced there wasn’t too much mark up for marketing and dealer profit built in to the cost of their products.

Through research, a little luck, and maybe a little divine intervention I was fortunate enough to meet Frank Dickens. Frank owns Silent Source Cables. After many, many hours of discussions and research I began the process of switching my cables over to Silent Source. My system is now completely Silent Source along with a couple Silent Source PC’s as well. All I can say is the results are absolutely incredible. I have absolutely zero regrets for "investing" the money in his products. And, I have made a trusted friend who is the best resource I’ve ever had for audio advice. The likelihood of me changing my gear around his cables is far greater than me changing his cables out around my gear. I feel like his cables give me the ability to fairly evaluate literally any change I make to my system.

So, in my opinion, there is good stuff and bad stuff out there. Good values and not so good values. I don’t disagree with the premise that there is some snake oil being peddled out there. But, I don’t think it’s fair to paint the whole segment with the same brush.