There’s a difference between being expensive or even pointless vs being snake oil.

People call audio gear like this snake oil, but I don’t think that’s quite right. When you walk into a Best Buy and they try to sell you a $200 HDMI cable with your TV, that’s snake oil. They’re selling it to average Joes who don’t know any better and think they have to spend exorbitant amounts of money on the cable to get good picture quality for the TV they just bought.

With something like Abyss/JPS cables, those are not being marketed to normal people. No one is getting ‘fooled’ by them. Those are products that are sold to people who are well acquainted with the high end audio world and are already spending many thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars on gear. And their argument is that it may improve the sound quality by maybe 2%. Is it bullshit? Probably. I have no reason to believe an expensive cable like that will do absolutely anything for the sound. But my point is that no one is being gaslit or bamboozled. It’s people who are already spending insane amounts of money, who think maybe they can squeeze out that last teeny tiny bit of performance with a super expensive cable.

If someone wants to spend their money on that, let them. But a $200 cable from Best Buy is FAR more egregious than a $3000 cable from JPS. The former is an attempt to fool you; the latter is just hardcore enthusiasts blowing their money on a hobby they love. That’s their choice. If they want to waste money on something that won’t change the sound, that’s completely up to them.

Basically, just because something is expensive and pointless doesn’t mean it’s a scam. I could go out and buy a $10,000 bottle of Scotch. Will it taste any better than a $150 bottle? No. But that doesn’t mean it’s a scam. If I choose to waste my money on that, that’s on me.