Futureshop: Worth the money?

I bought 10 of these adapters on Temu for about 30p each. They work fine, so unless this is some sort of joke (that's gone whooooosh past my head as we all know the daft prices for audiophile kit) I can't see the point of your post.

No, you're 100% correct, A "Goldenears" and his money are soon parted.

One wonders why they bother. "Nordest" seem to be rather coy about where they are located and where their products are manufactured. I presume the burn-in is intended to weed out any dodgy joints (made with low-noise solder, of course). I wonder if it includes a measurement of the bit error rate.

"Only available in the UK". Perhaps they think we're the only ones gullible enough to pay their ludicrous prices. They're coy about those too. A case of "If you have to ask the price, you probably can't afford it"?

Even second hand:

No problem: "Breathe easy. Returns accepted".

If anybody watched the film 'The Menu' with Ralph Fiennes last night, that was of the same kind of world. One which I have neither the intention, nor the money, to join. I was expecting to see some adapters for maybe £2 to £10, but this defies any kind of logic.

Umm Is this pricing used where the vendor has no stock but does not want to lose the listing.>

If you spend that much, it will sound better. To you.

No, it's a straight-up scam.

That's why we're in these newsgroups, to point out when something is just a length of bell wire.

The "oxygen state" of digital cables, does not matter :-)

If "the front fell off", you'd have reason to complain. The connectors must stay crimped to the cable. You may not notice, but we've made great strides in some things, in not having the connectors fall off or snap easily. (My 128GB USB stick with the *plastic* barrel, being an example of how not to do it, item was broken the first day.)

Cabling has some predictable impedance values, so even a "poor manufacturer" can make an electrically-decent cable. There is no need of unobtanium in a cable at these speeds to make it work.

When cabling gets to the unobtanium level, the standards body should spell out the material science needed to make the cable. For example, if switching to teflon was the answer, then everyone would use teflon, the impedance would be 90 ohms in the spec, or whatever. The details are usually spelled out enough, that compliant cable manufacturing is possible (100 suppliers instead of 2 suppliers).

I'm surprised, for £310.00, there isn't more attention to the appearance of the product. Maybe it matches the colour of the cables in the rest of my AV rack, but other than that, it needs more work. And you're likely to be slapping another cable onto the end of that beauty, so it is hardly a neat and tidy solution. What if (heaven forbid), the two pieces of cable are different colour ? I only buy gray cables for USB2 :-) And the cables are nitrogen free.

Paul

So the question remains: Why do people but this stuff?

The supply of malleable idiots is huge.

I was shocked, upon reading a recent story. A group of people had been participating in romance scams. This is where you take an interest in lonely desperate people and convince them to part with money, for various made up reasons. This is called "pig butchering" for some reason.

Well, a single group of people, they made $15 billion from lonely desperate people. That is not the sum total of all romance scams, that's *one group* and their profit.

Surely one of those victims, is in the market for a USB extension/converter for 300 :-)

One way to convince someone to pay 300, is the FOMO technique.

Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO)

You make it look like "everyone is buying these, why not YOU". And occasionally, you bag a victim and you sell one.

When I did an online search for this item, one thing that made me smirk, is the web domain names are all of a particular "type and tone", perfect for the twirly people to latch onto. A Golden Ears could not resist some of the web site names selling that item. Presumably the FutureShop is a Bazaar Seller, like Walmart, Amazon, Staples and BestBuy. A bazaar seller, bulks out their website, with unaffiliated items they don't stock in their own warehouse. Drop-shipping. The FutureShop, organizationally, may not know what they're selling. Some bazaar sellers have a "Report Abuse" button.

Paul

I'm surprised by your cynicism. Don't you know that you get what you pay for? Obviously, the more expensive it is, the better it is.

After all, nobody turns a hair when this principle is applied to salaries, sorry, 'compensation'.

That is often the case

Does anyone actually buy it though?

This is the price point I would be expecting - and RS is a respected supplier:

Agreed. I and my late wife always drank Veuve Clicquot, recently at around £35-£40 per bottle. Even at £40, that would allow for nearly 8 bottles.

Yummy! Glug, glug....

Suppose some idiot will think cable burn is worth 300 odd quid!.

Think I'm in the wrong job or too honest!..