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MIT speaker cable

20K views 408 replies 50 participants last post by  arnyk 
#1 ·
Not sure if this is the right place to post this, but did not see any sub-forum dedicated to cable.


So I was looking around on Audiogon and found that a lot of discontinued MIT speaker cables are selling for half price. I'm currently using some "just cable" ($3-4 a foot) and wondering if it is worth jumping on the deals. I'm interested in MIT CVT2, S3 etc selling for $250 - $600.


I'm not very familiar with the cables and any advice would be greatly appreciated.
 
#127 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jinjuku  /t/1416997/mit-speaker-cable/120#post_24502674


My offer. My rules.


You are the one going on about the differences in the cable. Like David Lee Roth said: "You can either do it one take or you can't do it"


I'm testing claims. Your claims are that the MIT are simply better. You don't need a few hours with my Belden or my MIT EXP2 for these claims to be tested.


I've already proved my point.

Well then carry on good sir.
 
#128 ·
Just a question here.....shouldn't the MIT cables sound different than a standard cable since they have some sort of built in sound processing in the box on the cables? If thats the case, telling them apart should not be difficult.


But in my opinion, I want cables that are just that.....cables to transmit the sound from the receiver/amp to the speakers or to transmit the sound from the source to the amp.. I don't want cables that alter or "color" the sound.
 
#129 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by kgallerie  /t/1416997/mit-speaker-cable/100_100#post_24502743


Just a question here.....shouldn't the MIT cables sound different than a standard cable since they have some sort of built in sound processing in the box on the cables? If thats the case, telling them apart should not be difficult.


But in my opinion, I want cables that are just that.....cables to transmit the sound from the receiver/amp to the speakers or to transmit the sound from the source to the amp.. I don't want cables that alter or "color" the sound.

Yepp. My entire point: They aren't just cables. Now MIT does call them music interfaces. I have a pair of $260 MIT's EXP2's. I haven't found anyone willing to put $$ where the mouth as of yet.


Far as their higher end offerings: You just might as well put in a MiniDSP in the middle of the line level cables and EQ to taste and then market the difference.


With MIT boxes being an indiscriminate box regardless of amplifier or speaker load, reading their 'literature', I've never been able to figure out just what their claims actually are.


Most times passive electronics in the speaker level path are tuned to the exact drivers, x-over points, notch/shelf filters, etc that those drivers call for.
 
#131 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by kgallerie  /t/1416997/mit-speaker-cable/100_100#post_24502872


Right.......so your offer to NagysAudio doesn't make much sense in that he should be able to pick out the MIT cables since they alter the sound.

The offer = test. It's a testing of claims with financial incentive. I think he can't, he thinks he can. However he doesn't believe in his ability to prove his claim.


So in the quotes below, as it pertains to MIT interfaces, there are no particulars mentioned as far as model from MIT by Nady. So I base my test on that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NagysAudio  /t/1416997/mit-speaker-cable/100_100#post_24500386


Good sir, you're not very familiar with how power amplifiers work, for example. Or how energy is stored. Or complex harmonics. You should read some of their patents. They're all real with sound science. I really don't want to copy and paste so much information from so many different sources
Quote:
Originally Posted by NagysAudio  /t/1416997/mit-speaker-cable/100_100#post_24500008


At 1KHz? I'm going to have

Yeah, right. Knowing what's inside the networks, I don't believe that for a second.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NagysAudio  /t/1416997/mit-speaker-cable/100_100#post_24499861


Patents can also be given for a new and unique implementation. This sort of transmission line termination and staggered filter poles are unique for audio purposes.

If anyone can tell me which MIT products he is speaking to in his opening remarks (the ones I responded to with the test) then I would like to see how that determination was arrived at.


So what will happen next is in a thread in the future Nady will make sure post with specificity as to a particular MIT product. Because while MIT was great et al... according to his initial posts, the EXP2's are an exception and are junk (my interpretation of his post). Nady can't have it both ways.
 
#132 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by NagysAudio  /t/1416997/mit-speaker-cable/120#post_24502577


You're doing this all wrong Mickey Mouse. As per always, I need to prove you nothing. Now let's say I did feel like entertaining a bet for my own amusement, you'd have to come to Chicago, it would be my system, my room, my MIT cables (vs. whatever you want to bring), and my rules of the testing process. Which are: I get to listen to your cables for a few hours, I get to pick sample tracks for the test, and if you want me to identify cable A you'll have to switch between A and B as many times as it takes for me to give an answer.


Sometimes the differences can be small and hard to spot, especially to an untrained listener and in an alien environment. So what you're proposing is stupid and a waste of time which proves nothing.


With my rules, I bet I can nail my MIT Shotgun, or CVT cables 9/10 versus anything plain that you would bring, i.e. Monster, Monoprice, AudioQuest, Blue Jeans, etc.


Capiche?

Your rules are probably not within the requirements for a bias controlled test. But if you can live with true bias controlled rules and you don't have cables with anything attached to them except connectors. I'll make the trip to Chicago. I won't even bring any cables. We'll use the ones that you can ID 9 out of 10 times. Your stuff, my rules. When do we meet?
 
#135 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by FMW  /t/1416997/mit-speaker-cable/120#post_24503336


Your rules are probably not within the requirements for a bias controlled test. But if you can live with true bias controlled rules and you don't have cables with anything attached to them except connectors. I'll make the trip to Chicago. I won't even bring any cables. We'll use the ones that you can ID 9 out of 10 times. Your stuff, my rules. When do we meet?

You sound like a stalker.
 
#136 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by NagysAudio  /t/1416997/mit-speaker-cable/120#post_24503503


So who cares?

People who don't want to waste hundreds or thousands of dollars on cables that will do nothing but empty their wallet.


LOL....I just checked out your website as well. What a load of garbage.


This quote on your "speaker link interface wire" (speaker wire) page put it over the top for me:
Quote:
Originally Posted by webpage 

Burn-In Period


- All Speaker Wire Links have been tested and pre burned-in at the

factory. However, as with any high end audio components, it may

take up to 50 hours of listening to music to reach the optimal sonic

results

And $260 for a set of speaker jumpers!!!! ......LOL!!!! smh.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NagysAudio  /t/1416997/mit-speaker-cable/120#post_24503507


You sound like a stalker.

You sound like some one who won't put their money where their mouth is.
 
#139 ·
It's not as simple as just connecting two components with lamp cord wire. Or any other simple twisted pair of conductors. Ironically this method while primitive and least complex is also the most colored with the highest level of all sorts of distortion. Interface. Interface. Interface. The three I's. Or I cubed. Have you peeps ever seen an HDMI interface? Care to guess how many transistors make up that circuit? USB? Firewire? ESATA? What about basic digital audio with multiple buffers and clocks, etc.?


How about precision test equipment? Aerospace? Defense? Anything military? 50 Ohm interface is very popular in these fields. Even an oscilloscope has an interface. Come to think of it, outside of a light bulb and a washing machine, everything else has some sort of proper termination, either with specific geometry of the cable or connector itself, or a full blown circuit. Component video, S-video, digital coax, optical, RF, antenna, locators, instrumentation, computers, guidance, radio, radars, neutron bomb triggers... Yup, you guessed it. Everything works on proper impedance matching and termination.


So why not audio? Have any of you actually used a basic Tektronix to see what is going on at the output of an audio amplifier? There's all sorts of garbage way up into the megahertz region. Complex harmonics due to signal (music), RF, reflections, etc. And it doesn't help that the speakers have a variable impedance which is frequency related. The amps have a 0 Ohm output. Preamps have a 1K Ohm output. The amps have a 10K Ohm input. In other words, what a mess and a giant pile of crap.


Most of you can decrease your amplifier's distortion by simply installing a low pass filter. I recommend ya'll try a 10uH inductor in series with the speakers. And then measure the amplifier's various distortion levels. 10uH inductor driving a tweeter with a nominal impedance of 3-4 Ohms, the corner frequency is way past what the human ear can hear. Yet the effects are very audible. Why? That's the problem with armchair experts. Remember what Indiana Jones told that kid at the library? Put that book down and go experience the world first hand. You peeps hiding behind your computer monitors should do some first hand experimentation. These parts cost pennies.


Take a 75 Ohm coax cable. Measure jitter with BNC connectors. Now repeat with RCA connectors. Due to the space between the center pin and the outer ring, no RCA connector can ever be a true 75 Ohm part. You will notice reflections. Higher jitter. This can be fixed by installing a 75 Ohm resistor at the source end. Or a 1-5 Ohm resistor at each end. Now do the same test with length. Due to transmission line effects a 1 meter cable will have higher jitter than a 1.5 meter cable. You can further lower jitter and RF noise with a 100pF parallel capacitor.


The possibilities are endless. We haven't even scratched the surface of electronic science. It's fun and rewarding to do these tests and measurements followed by listening sessions. To see true results first hand and to hear them.
 
#141 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by NagysAudio  /t/1416997/mit-speaker-cable/120#post_24504513


It's not as simple as just connecting two components with lamp cord wire. Or any other simple twisted pair of conductors. Ironically this method while primitive and least complex is also the most colored with the highest level of all sorts of distortion. Interface. Interface. Interface. The three I's. Or I cubed. Have you peeps ever seen an HDMI interface? Care to guess how many transistors make up that circuit? USB? Firewire? ESATA? What about basic digital audio with multiple buffers and clocks, etc.?


How about precision test equipment? Aerospace? Defense? Anything military? 50 Ohm interface is very popular in these fields. Even an oscilloscope has an interface. Come to think of it, outside of a light bulb and a washing machine, everything else has some sort of proper termination, either with specific geometry of the cable or connector itself, or a full blown circuit. Component video, S-video, digital coax, optical, RF, antenna, locators, instrumentation, computers, guidance, radio, radars, neutron bomb triggers... Yup, you guessed it. Everything works on proper impedance matching and termination.


So why not audio? Have any of you actually used a basic Tektronix to see what is going on at the output of an audio amplifier? There's all sorts of garbage way up into the megahertz region. Complex harmonics due to signal (music), RF, reflections, etc. And it doesn't help that the speakers have a variable impedance which is frequency related. The amps have a 0 Ohm output. Preamps have a 1K Ohm output. The amps have a 10K Ohm input. In other words, what a mess and a giant pile of crap.


Most of you can decrease your amplifier's distortion by simply installing a low pass filter. I recommend ya'll try a 10uH inductor in series with the speakers. And then measure the amplifier's various distortion levels. 10uH inductor driving a tweeter with a nominal impedance of 3-4 Ohms, the corner frequency is way past what the human ear can hear. Yet the effects are very audible. Why? That's the problem with armchair experts. Remember what Indiana Jones told that kid at the library? Put that book down and go experience the world first hand. You peeps hiding behind your computer monitors should do some first hand experimentation. These parts cost pennies.


Take a 75 Ohm coax cable. Measure jitter with BNC connectors. Now repeat with RCA connectors. Due to the space between the center pin and the outer ring, no RCA connector can ever be a true 75 Ohm part. You will notice reflections. Higher jitter. This can be fixed by installing a 75 Ohm resistor at the source end. Or a 1-5 Ohm resistor at each end. Now do the same test with length. Due to transmission line effects a 1 meter cable will have higher jitter than a 1.5 meter cable. You can further lower jitter and RF noise with a 100pF parallel capacitor.


The possibilities are endless. We haven't even scratched the surface of electronic science. It's fun and rewarding to do these tests and measurements followed by listening sessions. To see true results first hand and to hear them.

I take it you are declining my offer to come to Chicago to administer a bias controlled cable test. No need to try to convince me you can hear cables. I've given you an opportunity to prove it.
 
#142 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by NagysAudio  /t/1416997/mit-speaker-cable/100_100#post_24504513


It's not as simple as just connecting two components with lamp cord wire. Or any other simple twisted pair of conductors. Ironically this method while primitive and least complex is also the most colored with the highest level of all sorts of distortion. Interface. Interface. Interface. The three I's. Or I cubed. Have you peeps ever seen an HDMI interface? Care to guess how many transistors make up that circuit? USB? Firewire? ESATA? What about basic digital audio with multiple buffers and clocks, etc.?


How about precision test equipment? Aerospace? Defense? Anything military? 50 Ohm interface is very popular in these fields. Even an oscilloscope has an interface. Come to think of it, outside of a light bulb and a washing machine, everything else has some sort of proper termination, either with specific geometry of the cable or connector itself, or a full blown circuit. Component video, S-video, digital coax, optical, RF, antenna, locators, instrumentation, computers, guidance, radio, radars, neutron bomb triggers... Yup, you guessed it. Everything works on proper impedance matching and termination.


So why not audio? Have any of you actually used a basic Tektronix to see what is going on at the output of an audio amplifier? There's all sorts of garbage way up into the megahertz region. Complex harmonics due to signal (music), RF, reflections, etc. And it doesn't help that the speakers have a variable impedance which is frequency related. The amps have a 0 Ohm output. Preamps have a 1K Ohm output. The amps have a 10K Ohm input. In other words, what a mess and a giant pile of crap.


Most of you can decrease your amplifier's distortion by simply installing a low pass filter. I recommend ya'll try a 10uH inductor in series with the speakers. And then measure the amplifier's various distortion levels. 10uH inductor driving a tweeter with a nominal impedance of 3-4 Ohms, the corner frequency is way past what the human ear can hear. Yet the effects are very audible. Why? That's the problem with armchair experts. Remember what Indiana Jones told that kid at the library? Put that book down and go experience the world first hand. You peeps hiding behind your computer monitors should do some first hand experimentation. These parts cost pennies.


Take a 75 Ohm coax cable. Measure jitter with BNC connectors. Now repeat with RCA connectors. Due to the space between the center pin and the outer ring, no RCA connector can ever be a true 75 Ohm part. You will notice reflections. Higher jitter. This can be fixed by installing a 75 Ohm resistor at the source end. Or a 1-5 Ohm resistor at each end. Now do the same test with length. Due to transmission line effects a 1 meter cable will have higher jitter than a 1.5 meter cable. You can further lower jitter and RF noise with a 100pF parallel capacitor.


The possibilities are endless. We haven't even scratched the surface of electronic science. It's fun and rewarding to do these tests and measurements followed by listening sessions. To see true results first hand and to hear them.

If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with b.s.


What does anything you have posted have to do with you telling the difference in a properly controlled SBT?


Don't forget you are talking to actual speaker designers and persons that understand input vs output impedance. BTW most well built audio systems are VOLTAGE matched. Not impedance matched.


As far as I/O you aren't impedance matching. You are using a low impedance output into a high impedance input. No matching going on. My first job was installing edit suites. Where high bandwith was the norm (video) yes BNC and 75 ohm terminations to stop bounce back.


High speed SCSI? 110 Ohm. That's impedance matching. It's a termination value. The circuit is built for a specific impedance hump that it can't get a voltage rise past.


BTW, computer data, RF etc are all high frequency applications where cable geometry and proper termination come into play. And even then you can get a $60 Motherboard that can do GB Ethernet (~ 3 BluRays concurrently transmitted over the network).


20Hz to 20Khz audio? That's nothing. Also what does the knee of a crossover slope have to do with any of this other than the steeper the slope the quicker the knee?
 
#143 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jinjuku  /t/1416997/mit-speaker-cable/120#post_24504945


If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with b.s.


What does anything you have posted have to do with you telling the difference in a properly controlled SBT?


Don't forget you are talking to actual speaker designers and persons that understand input vs output impedance. BTW most well built audio systems are VOLTAGE matched. Not impedance matched.


As far as I/O you aren't impedance matching. You are using a low impedance output into a high impedance input. No matching going on. My first job was installing edit suites. Where high bandwith was the norm (video) yes BNC and 75 ohm terminations to stop bounce back.


High speed SCSI? 110 Ohm. That's impedance matching. It's a termination value. The circuit is built for a specific impedance hump that it can't get a voltage rise past.


BTW, computer data, RF etc are all high frequency applications where cable geometry and proper termination come into play. And even then you can get a $60 Motherboard that can do GB Ethernet (~ 3 BluRays concurrently transmitted over the network).


20Hz to 20Khz audio? That's nothing. Also what does the knee of a crossover slope have to do with any of this other than the steeper the slope the quicker the knee?

Wait... Huh?
 
#144 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by NagysAudio  /t/1416997/mit-speaker-cable/120#post_24504513


It's not as simple as just connecting two components with lamp cord wire. Or any other simple twisted pair of conductors. Ironically this method while primitive and least complex is also the most colored with the highest level of all sorts of distortion. Interface. Interface. Interface. The three I's. Or I cubed. Have you peeps ever seen an HDMI interface? Care to guess how many transistors make up that circuit? USB? Firewire? ESATA? What about basic digital audio with multiple buffers and clocks, etc.?


How about precision test equipment? Aerospace? Defense? Anything military? 50 Ohm interface is very popular in these fields. Even an oscilloscope has an interface. Come to think of it, outside of a light bulb and a washing machine, everything else has some sort of proper termination, either with specific geometry of the cable or connector itself, or a full blown circuit. Component video, S-video, digital coax, optical, RF, antenna, locators, instrumentation, computers, guidance, radio, radars, neutron bomb triggers... Yup, you guessed it. Everything works on proper impedance matching and termination.


So why not audio? Have any of you actually used a basic Tektronix to see what is going on at the output of an audio amplifier? There's all sorts of garbage way up into the megahertz region. Complex harmonics due to signal (music), RF, reflections, etc. And it doesn't help that the speakers have a variable impedance which is frequency related. The amps have a 0 Ohm output. Preamps have a 1K Ohm output. The amps have a 10K Ohm input. In other words, what a mess and a giant pile of crap.


Most of you can decrease your amplifier's distortion by simply installing a low pass filter. I recommend ya'll try a 10uH inductor in series with the speakers. And then measure the amplifier's various distortion levels. 10uH inductor driving a tweeter with a nominal impedance of 3-4 Ohms, the corner frequency is way past what the human ear can hear. Yet the effects are very audible. Why? That's the problem with armchair experts. Remember what Indiana Jones told that kid at the library? Put that book down and go experience the world first hand. You peeps hiding behind your computer monitors should do some first hand experimentation. These parts cost pennies.


Take a 75 Ohm coax cable. Measure jitter with BNC connectors. Now repeat with RCA connectors. Due to the space between the center pin and the outer ring, no RCA connector can ever be a true 75 Ohm part. You will notice reflections. Higher jitter. This can be fixed by installing a 75 Ohm resistor at the source end. Or a 1-5 Ohm resistor at each end. Now do the same test with length. Due to transmission line effects a 1 meter cable will have higher jitter than a 1.5 meter cable. You can further lower jitter and RF noise with a 100pF parallel capacitor.


The possibilities are endless. We haven't even scratched the surface of electronic science. It's fun and rewarding to do these tests and measurements followed by listening sessions. To see true results first hand and to hear them.

A 10 uH inductor will have an impedance of about 1 ohm at 15khz. In series with a 4ohm tweeter, that's a 25% attenuation in voltage. Of course it's audible.


If a 10uH inductor was all it took to reduce distortion, you'd see 10uH inductors in every amplifier out there.
 
#145 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by koturban  /t/1416997/mit-speaker-cable/120#post_24505270


A 10 uH inductor will have an impedance of about 1 ohm at 15khz. In series with a 4ohm tweeter, that's a 25% attenuation in voltage. Of course it's audible.


If a 10uH inductor was all it took to reduce distortion, you'd see 10uH inductors in every amplifier out there.

You honestly believe in what you've wrote there? A ferrite core 10uH inductor will have a max DCR of 0.02 Ohm. Now think of the inductance of the tweeter's voice coil. Most amps have an output of 0.1 Ohm. Et cetera. Et cetera. I don't feel like doing the math here, but maybe someone can verify. It will be a fraction of a dB down at 20kHz. AVS scientists will claim that's inaudible.
 
#148 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by NagysAudio  /t/1416997/mit-speaker-cable/100_100#post_24505529

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jinjuku  /t/1416997/mit-speaker-cable/120#post_24505495


What does any of this have to do with either my offer or FMW's offer to you?


Either you can or you can't.

Sorry, but I don't do requests. Nor play by your rules. But you two buds should go ahead and get together.

You have zero credibility since you wont back your claims, not even in your own home with your own music and your own gear connected with your own cables. Typical of so called high end charlatans. Dazzle them with nonsense but never make the effort to prove you are correct with your claims.
 
#150 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by NagysAudio  /t/1416997/mit-speaker-cable/120#post_24505427


You honestly believe in what you've wrote there? A ferrite core 10uH inductor will have a max DCR of 0.02 Ohm. Now think of the inductance of the tweeter's voice coil. Most amps have an output of 0.1 Ohm. Et cetera. Et cetera. I don't feel like doing the math here, but maybe someone can verify. It will be a fraction of a dB down at 20kHz. AVS scientists will claim that's inaudible.

Please do the math. Show us you can actually do the math.
 
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