An Old Topic

Hey, remember how I ranted about gullible "audiophiles" and their ridiculous love of unbelievably marked-up cables? Well, Monster suddenly looks reasonably-priced after looking at the Pear Cable Anjou Cables $7250 for 12 ft?? WHAT THE FUCK?

I will once again reiterate (rereiterate?). It's a piece of copper run through a sleeve. Give me a freaking break.

I'm glad there's people like James Randi out there.

Or go read this article, as it is far more thorough than what I feel like writing again.

I'm totally in the wrong business. I should head over to my local surplus store, buy up a few rolls of cheap cable and surplus connectors, re-sleeve and repackage them, and write up some bullshit PR and specs and sell them for half the price of Monster and make a killing.

In a completely different vein, anybody want to buy some miraculous snake oil? It cures what ails ya and will improve ROI in your poker game by a measurable amount.

On Sheep

I am either a salesperson's wet dream or worst nightmare, depending on their perspective. Before I make just about any purchase, I research products and alternatives as much as reasonably possible. This has led to one large conclusion. Consumers are sheep.

iPods, Bose, Sony, Monster - all inferior products at inflated prices, and my examples. But they're well-marketed and look cool, so they get bought. Then when less expensive and superior quality alternatives are pointed out to people, they fight tooth and nail that their overpriced, underachieving purchases are actually the best, because they're too proud to admit they got ripped off. So the cycle continues.

They also tend to get locked-in to the product lines after their first purchase. You buy and iPod, and install iTunes. Maybe you buy a Mac for your next computer (not a bad product depending on your needs). A few years pass, or you battery dies, and its time to buy a new music player. Well, you already have all your iTunes playlists and purchases, and maybe that Mac, so you buy another iPod because it's easier than converting to a format another player can use.

What amazes me though, is the ferocity of the brand-defenders. Tone-deaf myopic sheep who will insist their Bose system is the greatest sound experience ever, their Bravia was worth the premium price, and that the $1000 on Monster cables and surge protectors makes it all fantastic.

I'll grant that iPods look great and are easy to use, but they have some serious shortcomings that prevent me from ever wanting one. They're well-documented out there. Why pay a higher price for something that looks cool when I'll be keeping in my pocket? Especially when the lower-priced alternatives have far more features and less of those annoyances. Are they garbage? Nope, but their dominance blinds people from what else is out there.

Sony isn't a terrible company. It's arrogant, short-sighted, and greedy though. Their audio/video lineup is perfectly acceptable. But NOT at the price point they have set. They sell themselves as a high-end product, but they offer mid-range equipment. For the same price as any Sony product, you can get FAR better quality, without being tied to their propietary formats and interfaces. If you want the same quality (and sometimes still better), you can definitely find it for much less.

Bose is where things take a steep turn downhill. This is a company that's all about marketing. Controlled in-store experiences that could never be duplicated in the real world, a bombardment of impressive-sounding ads, and a premium price all contribute to making Joe Consumer think they're buying the absolute best. In the audio world, BOSE = Buy Other Sound Equipment. $500 for what is essentially a clock radio? $2000 for a home-theatre-in-a-box? You won't find a single reputable expert out there that thinks Bose is worth 1/2 that much. Cheap build quality, acoustically retarded technology choices, and zero industry credibility, yet they still survive and flourish. I cringe whenever I walk into a friend's place that has a Bose system. Spend 20 minutes doing some research online and you'll discover a whole new world of affordable, QUALITY audio equipment.

Finally, there's Monster Cable. If Bose is all about marketing, Monster is all about bullshit. A cable is simple - a copper wire (be it single or multi-core) surrounded by insulation and a cover, terminating in metal connectors. Gauge, length, and quality of metal all make differences in how well it transmits the signal, but over the distances found in 99% of homes, they are generally minor. Monster claims things like amazing dielectrics, top-quality materials, an a ton of technology that has no bearing on a wire. Assuming you're a modern kind of person and have a wide, big screen HDTV, a DVD (or even HD-DVD/Blu-Ray) player, amplifier, 5.1 or better sound, and digital/satellite cable... Monster is useless to you. Unless your family room happens to be 200ft long, and all the equipement is at the back while the TV is at the front. Then you might benefit from a high-end cable. One might think that your DVD player and amp are about 2ft away from your TV, and your rear speakers are maybe 15-25ft away from the amp. Trust me, spend no more than $100 total on your cables, you'll be fine. If you're going to invest in a high-end cable anywhere in that system, then it should be between your 1080p player and the 1080p TV. If you don't have either of these, you won't notice a difference. But when you buy anything for that setup, the salesperson WILL try and sell you the Monster cables - tell them where they can shove them.