If you have an extra $2,000 in your home entertainment budget, consider investing it in the 12-meter AudioQuest Coffee cable. Oh, sure, it’s not for everyone, but online customer reviews report life-changing and scientifically impossible experiences that you just can’t get with your ordinary $5 HDMI cable.
According to one reviewer on Best Buy’s site, their performance surpasses even that of Monster Cable. Is that possible? Evidently.
WOW, just WOW! I mean this cable made my 2D TV a 3D TV instantly…I turned on Toy Story 3 and Woody jumped out of the TV lassoed me and drug me around my living room. Monster who? I’ll never shop at Monoprice again! I’ve wasted at least $100 on HDMI cables in the past 5 years, I wish I would have saved and just bought 5 of these.
What’s great about it: Makes 2D, 3D. Fed and pet my dogs. Made 1080P obsolete.
What’s not so great: package was a pain to open
I was about to say that I wouldn’t recommend buying this cable unless it also walks your dogs in addition to feeding and petting them, but then I found this review:
This cable is amazing! I bought two of them, and I use one of them as a leash for my champion show dog that I got from the pound. They used to say she had an overbite, but now all they can do is stare at my amazing AudioQuest Coffee 39.4′ HDMI Cable leash. It makes my dog look so much more amazing, and she now wins EVERY SINGLE SHOW I take her to, before she even enters the ring! They just see that leash and start throwing trophies and blue ribbons and roses at her.
If you’re concerned at the high price tag, don’t worry: another reviewer says that this cable is so beautiful, you won’t need a TV, media player, or even a gaming console. Just staring at the cable is enough to entertain your entire family.
I must say that this thing is truly a work of art. We no longer bother to turn on the TV, instead opting to stare at this wonderment for hours on end. Now we don’t have to risk cable burn in! The kids have given up playing video games, prefering instead to gaze at the beauty of this cable. If everybody had one of these, there would be peace on Earth forever! God bless AudioQuest!
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AudioQuest – Coffee 39.4′ HDMI Cable – White [Best Buy] (Thanks, Patrick!)
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At first, I thought that these were typos, but there are so many of them. What’s really the deal with these super-expensive HDMI cables?
They are not worth it, period. If any of those reviews aren’t real, they’re from absolute morons with lots of money to piss away. There’s nothing this cable can do that the $3 HDMI cables on Monoprice can’t. You know, other than clear out your bank account.
No, I didn’t mean that they were worth it. My $5 cable is great, thanks. I just wondered if people were putting them up as pranks, or if something else was going on. I mean… There are too many to be typos and people can’t really be stupid enough to purchase them at this price… Can they? O.o
I think you’d be absolutely amazed how much money rich people piss away on a daily basis.
I dunno, I had the impression that most wealthy folk were rather frugal. I have alot of wealthy family, and they’re all cheap-asses, for the most part. Maybe they’re targeting the UBER-wealthy?
Rose, there is a group of folks known as audiophiles. They spend a lot of time, effort and money so that when they listen to music they get the perfect sound. To that end they spend a lot of money on cables. Now it seems to move into the visual media as well.
If these cables are really better than the standard, I don’t know. You will have to ask someone who actually has one. Search the audiophile forums for discussions on cables, it’s all bit much for those of us who don’t even have $2000 worth of stereo/tv equipment.
My dad and my uncle are both serious audiophiles. In the past, I’ve seen my dad spend $500 on a gold cable. As a kid I spent many saturday mornings moving speakers a quarter of an inch back and forth. Even they realize that it makes no sense to spend more than a few dollars on a cable that carries a *digital* signal. The digital signal will arrive error free regardless.
If your dad knows that a digital cable either works or doesn’t, why doesn’t he know that gold isn’t as conductive as copper, by a significant amount? Gotta go silver or go home!
My best guess would be that AudioQuest and Monster are pricing their cables that way to take advantage of their corporate clients. For example, at the university I work at, if we need a new office chair, we cannot buy one off ebay or through the local department store, we have to purchase from Office Depot. Perhaps defense contractors are buying these and billing the government?
That’s a good theory, thanks.
Most rich people don’t piss away money, that is part of how they stay rich. The people who do are the people you read about who in the lottery and 5 years later are 2 million in debt.
I’d bet that these cables are purchased mostly by people who make 100-150k a year. Well off, not rich, but with enough money that they feel like they need to do stupid things with it.
I saw a stack of HDMI cables at my local Tigerdirect… each was sold in its own hinged wooden box (Polished black, if you must know) and I think they were around $500 each. I went back 6ish months later and the same stack was there except they were now $40. Still way too expensive but… wow… what were they smoking even to ask $500?
Depends on how nice the box is. $40 is not a bad price if its a REALLY nice box.
And they’ll throw in a free HDMI cable, too!
If you think any of those reviews linked to are real you have zero sarcasm filter
I didn’t say anything about the reviews. I was speaking of the overpriced HDMI cables be offered for sale, everywhere. A $2,000+ cable is a standard occurrence on just about every site I can think of. Again, at first, I believed that these were typos ($2,000 or $200 when they meant $20.00 or $2.00), but there are so many of them.
Again, I didn’t say a word about the hilarious and obviously fake reviews.
Everyone needs to lay off Rose.
Well they are 39 feet long… but still…..
Sometimes these overpriced cables exist just to make other overpriced Hdmi cables seem cheap by comparison. Does $2.2k seem to expensive? Well this $200 cable seems like a much better deal now doesn’t it?
I love the option to get financing! In handy periods of 6 to 36 months. Now I CAN get that cable!
@kingofmars “Sometimes these overpriced cables exist just to make other overpriced Hdmi cables seem cheap by comparison. “
Oooh! It’s all so clear now! – Conspiracy! AudioQuest be thy name!
So that the (stupid) people who think just because something is super expensive it MUST be better have something to spend (waste) their money on.
At my time at an electronics retailer 11 years ago, I lost more than a few sales because someone came in and complained that something did not cost enough.
Obviously the “reviews” are just a bunch of folks mocking the product. I HIGHLY doubt any of the quoted reviewers actually purchased the cable.
Ya think?
I did appliance installs a number of years ago. On one delivery of a washer, my partner went in, unhooked the old one and brought it out to the curb as requested. In the meantime, I got the new one off the truck, set up, and installed, paperwork signed by customer.
Done to perfection in15 minutes, tops. I was thinking “Sweet. We deserve a medal for that.”
Office calls 5 minutes after we left. “Customer complained we didn’t take long enough!”
i highly doubt ANYONE purchased the cable. and if they did, i want to meet them. i can’t get anyone to buy this damned bridge up in brooklyn…
Well sure, you COULD purchase a $2.50 cable from monoprice, but for only $1997.50 more you could get this fancy cable that performs 0.000000000000000000000000000001% better* AND has these cool ergonomic grips on them that makes it more comfortable when inserting and removing the cable once every 7 years when you replace the cable.
*Performance measurements not confirmed by independent testing laboratory, we simply asked the entire universe twice until we found one person who thought that our cable might look better than the less expensive cable…although it could have just been the cookie that we gave him that influinced his decision. Did we mention the ergonomic grips?
HDMI is a purely digital signal, the cable doesnt matter, either you get a picture or you dont. If you have a picture then no other cable is going to give you any better results.
I don’t know, but the headline of this article made me cry. For you see, I am poor, and will never know the ecstasy of a life-altering HDMI cable. How I curse this middle-class existence! :’-(
Thanks for the Laugh
Of course it changes your life. It makes you 2 grand poorer. If enough rich morons bought these cables though, it might fix the economy. That’s assuming that the genius of trickle-down economics is true.
No, I’m pretty sure all those rich morons would just pass their money along to create two or three new rich morons, then business as usual.
It’s true; the rich are morons, the poor are really, really smart. That’s always been the way things have worked, at least for philosophy majors.
Seriously, though, if someone is getting rich selling this thing then he’s no dope…can’t say the same for his customers, though…
Exactly.
Rich people are evil and stupid. They surely didn’t get Rich from having a good education and drive to work for their money. Not at all. It just some how magically dropped in their laps.
No, I’m pretty sure all those rich morons would just pass their money along to create two or three new rich morons, then business as usual.
It kind of looks like a computer mock-up. I bet they put it for sale for the hell of it and if someone buys one they’ll be like oh snap and then fabricate one.
Um,.. SARCASM ALERT! (insert various Star Trek alert Sounds) Ok my favorite is from ST 5 “rrred,rrred,red alert, rrred, rrred red alert” AND monoprice.com FTW!
So um… why does the article link back to itself?
Okay so, HERE is the Actual BestBuy Review Page.
Looks like some B-minus trolling, if you ask me.
I think Audioquest is the one doing the trolling. No one there can honestly expect anyone to buy one of these, even a hardcore audiophile. It seems like a publicity stunt of some kind, but as some one else pointed out, they could always just make a few to send out in the event that someone actually does buy one… and then laugh at them.
It is the hard sale. One of the commentors above is right. When you buy a $2,000 TV. Whats another $200 cable? Especially when they “discount” the $200 cable to only $79.95!
Part of the problem are stores like Best Buy itself. They make it seem through ads and the sales force that if you don’t buy one of these overpriced cables your brand new TV you just spent thousands on will be with the same as the old wood sided junk you keep in your garage.
Now I don’t think their sales force is lying. I just see them as in the same boat as Geek Squad. Selling you overpriced items that you can easily get for much, much cheaper anywhere else.
It is just them saying…”do you want to wait a week for a cable to arrive by mail, or pay our 1000% markup and use your TV now?
Sorry, but you need a big RTFA tag. The cable is $2,200. It costs more than most LCD TVs.
Was talking in generalities about the overpriced cables the stores sell. Not this one specifically. Sorry if I did not get that across.
I thought people above did a good enough job at how ridiculous a $2k+ cable was I did not need to comment on that specifically.
Oh and just so I am clear. You should not pay more than $20 [including shipping] for a decent length cable. No matter what the back of the box says in any real world double blind test I seriously doubt any person who walks into an electronics store would be able to tell the difference.
Old news=waste of time, bandwidth, etc.
Recursive “link”.
Consumerist must crave page hits.
H Lr ‘d lk y t mt smn. Hs nm s Phl nd h ls psts nn-strs… jst bt mnth r s bfr y.
http://consumerist.com/2010/11/best-buy-sells-overpriced-hdmi-cable-for-more-than-many-tvs.html
This was my first thought as well, only with vowels.
I’ll stick with the one I got online for a buck.
Link does not appear to work
4chan at work?
The sarcasm is dripping with these reviews…
I love the peace on earth one.
Wow, seems like a pretty good deal for two grand! I’m in!
The price appears to be right….and you can pay even more if you want. Scroll down to page 23 here on the official Audioquest price list:
http://www.audioquest.com/pdfs/RetailPriceBook_v2010-May-web.pdf
“86% of customers would recommend this product to a friend
(6 out of 7)”
LOL
The biggest problem I have with owning these cables is that all my electronics put the stupid HDMI connector on the BACK of the electronics. Seriously, you guys need to start thinking out of the box and put a special HDMI connector on the front of your equipment, label it in GOLD font HDMI Ultra+ or something that makes its seem more special. Then people would be more inclined to drop $2K on something where people could see the thing! Sheeze! At least Apple makes their jewelry shiny, with fancy lit up logos and stuff (and for less than these babies!)
Brilliant! +1 to you.
I believe Phil already snarked on this cable a few months ago. FYI, it’s the same price everywhere, not just at Best Buy. If you have beef with the price, take it up with AudioQuest. things are worth what people will pay for them. I would never spend a million dollars on a sports car that essentially does the same thing my Nissan does, but a billionaire wouldn’t see it as wasteful. My husband doesn’t understand the 10K price tag for a Hermes bag that does the same thing a $30 bag does. It’s irrelevant. Are we going to start seeing articles about all the really expensive things in the world?
You Nissan does the same things as a Bugatti does? Amazing
Yep. It drives me from home to work. It even goes to the grocery store believe it or not. Sometimes, I can get it to go even farther, like to the mall or even the movies. Plus, I don’t look like an overcompensating doucher. I don’t live anywhere where a Bugatti will ever reach its full potential, so what’s the point. Are you implying that this cable transmits an HD signar over 6 feet better than a 10$ cable?
I think his point was that you’re being disingenuous when you say that your Nissan does the same things that a million dollar sports car can do.
For instance, any car can get you from A to B just like your Nissan (some can even do it cheaper btw.) But I’m skeptical that your Nissan’s engine can generate over 1100hp and go from 0-60 in 2.5 seconds and achieve a top speed of 260+Mph.
Granted, not everyone with money needs or wants to drive such an animal. But for those who do, it exists.
Great point! Tell me when 1100 ponies, 260 mph top speed and 2.5s 0-60 is going to be useful and then we’ll talk. The point is that to someone who wants and can afford a Bugatti, a Bugatti is WORTH the price. To someone who wants and can afford this cable, it’s WORTH the price. Why do people import marble from Italy or have gold toilets? My original point is that snarking on things that are considered expensive is a pretty big waste of time.
This.
Why do I have a feeling that 4chan was involved?
Phil, please tell me where I can get a 12 meter HDMI cable for $5.
That is nothing, if you got to their website and download their price sheet :
http://www.audioquest.com/pdfs/RetailPriceBook_v2010-May-web.pdf
You’ll see the Diamond HDMI cable of the same length is sold for $9,800.00; but it is a special order item. I guess Solid 100% PSS Silver must be a very rare metal
HDMI= Helping Deplete Morons’ income.
Ha Ha…I was one of many who left one of these fake obnoxious reviews for this exact cables. I had over 100 likes, but when I last checked Best Buy pulled it off. I left one after reading an article about them somewhere. I didn’t really think people would be foolish enough to buy AudioQuest cables.
Ha Ha….I went to the site just now and I must say…..after Consumerist posted this article, more people have left reviews….reading them now…They’re pretty funny I must say.
Unfortunately companies are doing unethical things like this all the time. They fake reviews to sell their products. However I try to read the bad reviews first to make my own decisions.
They call this Black Hat Search Engine Marketing/Optimization.
While I love technology I hate how they make it as YOU HAVE TO HAVE IT OR OMG YOUR A DAM LOSER IF YOU DONT! I can believe how many people see breaking their wallet just to put a big screen TV in their house so people can see it there. Who gives a dam I have a 40inch LCD and it works great. Another 7 inches isnt going to blow my face off in a action movie when something blows up. People get your priorities straight and understand the game of these manufactures and companies. They want your money…all of it. They play a mind game to make you think you need it. I wish people would stop making everything into a stupid competition. Do your own thing. Im tired of people trying to out do people and the only person that is gonna see your TV is you.
O and I stopped watching TV a long time ago. It really frees you from the BS commercials and lies on TV.