Over the past week parts of the blogosphere have been buzzing over the discovery of a 1.5-meter Ethernet cable that is being sold for the insane price of $499.

The manufacturer is Denon, and the target customer is the "audio enthusiast." Apparently "audio enthusiast" is Denonese for "sucker."

The original listing for the product is unchanged, as if the company were unaware of the guffaws emanating from the geekier side of the Internet. It appears that the first discovery was publicized on CrunchGear, although I also saw listings on UberReview, Wired, and eventually Slashdot, among other places. You know how these things go.

Denon's description of the cable is priceless:

"Denon's 1.5 meter (59 in.) ultra premium Denon Link cable was designed for the audio enthusiast. Made from high purity copper wire and high performance connection parts, the AK-DL1 will bring out all the nuances in digital audio reproduction from any of our Denon DVD players with the Denon Link feature. Attention to detail when building this cable was used by employing high quality insulation, tin-bearing alloy shielding and woven jacketing to reduce vibration and to add durability. Additionally, signal directional markings are provided for optimum signal transfer. Rounded plug levers help prevent breakage."

Nuances. In a digital signal, where bits are bits. And thank goodness the copper wire is high in purity. Maybe that's where the high price comes from, what with copper costs being what they are today.

Obviously, this kind of inflated sense of worth isn't something you can get away with in the enterprise networking realm. Or is it?

Jeff Caruso is site editor at Network World.