$50/meter for optical is not an unreasonable price, but it's still a fair bit more than the $20 for Outlaw's very nice 1.8-meter PDO and $14 for a 3-foot Blue Jeans optical (both of which use some form of plasic optical fiber). I also find myself wondering why an optical cable would be directional, as mentioned in the Audio Asylum review - there's no grounding that I'm aware of in light transmission.