MIT cables and super tweeters

For what its worth, there is a white paper on the MIT website that describes the effects of the various technologies they use, including the various boxs.

I don't think it has anything to do with filtering of any kind.

I use the older and cheaper Terminator series in my system. As insinuated by the name, these use the box at the terminal (outbound) end of the cable only.

They sound very good. The only caveat is they can be a tad too bright and revealing on some systems.

Although I don't doubt that MIT cables will sound very good on some systems, and I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, I must say that as an electrical engineer (who DOES believe that cables can and do sound significantly different), I have perhaps never in my life read such utter gibberish as many of Bruce Brisson's writings.

A good example would be his manufacturer's response in the current TAS (no. 190, page 105) to Robert Harley's review of his $25K 8-foot speaker cables and $8K 1-meter interconnect. Just absolute techno-babble, at least as applied to audio frequencies.

I looked at the white paper on his site about "Articulation Response." More misleading techno-babble, with the y-axis on all of his plots, representing "articulation," totally undefined in any technically meaningful way. And his description of multi-pole technology, as broadening the frequency range that provides good articulation, failing to define the "poles" that he is talking about (no doubt because they don't exist within the audio spectrum).

As far as I'm concerned, no cable that includes a network box is a neutral cable. And if the characteristics of that network box are left undefined, and associated technical writeups are techno-gibberish, I would recommend staying away unless there were substantial anecdotal evidence of synergy between the particular system and the particular cable.

Regards,
-- Al

It's mostly about time-amignment, not low-pass. High frequency information travels electrically through the cable at a different speed than low-frequencies. Therefore, depending on the length of cable needed, each MIT cable is calibrated to re-align the audio signal electrically before it exits the cable. Typically, the result does improve bass because less low-frequency information is lost to cancellation due to mis-alignment. Now MIT has refined this philosophy to what they call poles of articulation, which finds the "sweet-spot" electrically for many frequency points. The higher the price of MIT cables the more poles of articulation.

"A good example would be his manufacturer's response in the current TAS (no. 190, page 105) to Robert Harley's review of his $25K 8-foot speaker cables and $8K 1-meter interconnect. Just absolute techno-babble, at least as applied to audio frequencies."

TEchno babble helps sell outrageously priced stuff to some. You have to convince perfectionists that spending lots of money is worth it to achieve their goals.

Fact is though based on my comparisons with other products in my system, the reasonably priced (used) Terminator cables clearly do without doubt deliver a sound consistent with the technoblather. Its a good $30-50 investment that delivers very good sound in a well matched system.

I suspect MIT uses the virtues of its affordable products to suck people into upgrading to its expanded and way more costly versions. What cable company wouldn't want to make anice high profit big ticket sale on occasion for not too much more investment in R&D or marketing costs?

I resist the urge to get carried away with enthusiasm for these uber-products. The diminishing returns only have value for relatively few.

As many here have pointed out already, it is often easier to sell the same luxury product to its target audience for more money than it is if the price is lower. After all, anybody can buy products for low cost.

Also, if you try a $50 used cable and don't like it, its not hard to sell it to someone else to try without taking a big hit (unless you overpay)