What I have to ask - does anyone ever pays close to retail on products in this price range? I could easily imagine that someone was able to buy them new at 60% of retail price and then sell them for what 'appears' to be a great price when, in fact, making a tidy profit.
That's all pure conjecture but I wouldn't be at all surprised... 
True enough. When it comes to power cords specifically, I have noticed more than a few on Audiogon who are selling power cords for $5K and up but they never seem to actually sell for anywhere near that. If they have a dealer network the selling price seems to be even lower. The M.S.R.P. is meaningless other than it's being used to set a starting point and its also being used to create a false sense of greatness for the product in question.
I know of one well known power cord guy in particular who is looking for around $2500.00 per cord and is actively selling them behind the scenes for around $500.00 to anybody who asks directly. In these cases I feel for the people who buy at or near retail. Nothing wrong with giving people a deal but if you can sell at $500.00 and are happy with it, why list at 5 X that in the first place? False sense of greatness perhaps?
At the end of the day I guess you have to have money to burn. If that is the case, $7K on a digital cable maybe isn't such a big deal. From looking at the system that guy has, I'm thinking $7K is nothing more than lunch money anyway.
Must be nice.....
