He had $1862 in store credit from Cable Co (which is nuts) but didn't even know that he had credit built up. So, he used said credit to buy the Meze's, which normally retail for around $3k. Meaning he got a set of Empyreans for basically a third of the normal price.

The Cable Company “loans out” audio equipment - primarily interconnects, digital cables, and power cords, but also some headphones and headphone amps - charging you a lending fee of something like 10% of the retail price of whatever you borrow from them to try out at home. Those 10% lending fees are treated like store credits and get deducted from the price of anything you later buy from the Cable Company.

So if you borrow $20K worth of cables, you accumulate $2K in lending fees. If you buy something from the Cable Co, they will deduct $2K from the retail price of whatever you buy. But if you don’t buy anything because a lot of what they sell is absurdly overpriced snake oily cables, the Cable Company keeps all lending fees. It’s a savvy business model, because they incentivize you to buy from them and if you don’t buy anything, they still make a profit.

I think he bought Empyreans for under $1826. Which, to be fair is a very good deal.