Ears On

You think gas is expensive? Copper, which formerly sold for around 90 cents a pound, has shot up past $3 a pound. Janet Pinkerton sums up the situation succinctly in the August 2006 issue of Custom Retailer (story not on site): "The copper price spiral has been driven by...a 'perfect storm' of economic factors: ravenous demand for copper and other metals from China and secondarily India, a strong construction market in the U.S., an extremely tight copper inventory supply, labor unrest in key copper mines, and the yet-to-be-quantified impact of fund managers and others speculating on copper futures." The labor unrest seems to be centered in Chile but production is also down in China. Skyrocketing copper will affect not only cables but a/v components as well. They're stuffed with copper wire. Some, like Pioneer's Elite receiver line, even use a thick copper chassis. Higher prices will be the inevitable result. For example: The Outlaw Audio site still quotes the price of the RR2150 stereo receiver as $599, but when I was fact-checking an upcoming review, my source bumped it to $649. Place your order now!