MIT cables: the sound

My personal opinion having owned, borrowed and listened to it many places.


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[RealHIFIHelp]

For free help, then look at my videos and comments. Then there are several 1000’s of hours put into these videos for the entire community. (circa 450 videos)

[keithbrandson]

Hi Larry. Thanks for providing a good description of MIT cables. I own Matrix HD 60 biwire speaker cables and Wilson Audio speakers. I agree about your description of detail, separation, layering, etc. But I don't agree that you think they are gray, dry, or vulgar(?). It my system, they are crystal clear and 'wet' vs. dry. Also very relaxed and 'gentle', due I think to their back-of-the-stage presentation - of all the details but without overemphasis on certain frequencies. I think there is a good reason that Wilson and Magico very often show their speakers with upper-level MIT cables. To me, they allow an organic, human quality, almost like tubes can. I have heard numerous detailed but generally lifeless demos of the Wilsons and Magicos and thought "those need MIT". I have no experience with either older or lower lines of the brand. Thanks again.

[LeonFleisherFan]

The phase-shifting circuitry in those boxes is parallel and the RC on the speaker terminal end acting like a buffer replacing a Spectral's power amp missing output choke. Together they form a ca. 350kHz low-pass filter. This makes perfect sense for megahertz bandwidth amplification such as Spectral (to keep the amplifier from oscillating) and a handful other brands offering similar designs, and yes, one can hear a difference toggling the impedance matching on those boxes (Spectral-branded cables have fixed low-impedance setting, there's no switch there), along with a treble attenuation, the soundstage virtually implodes using the wrong setting. I own and love both, a Spectral/MIT system and another using tube gear, and realize now I have never even tried my MIT cables in the latter. I hated the MIT sound of ten or twenty years ago, bloated yet dry and grey (I still have some Spectral-branded MIT cables from the 90s, water-hose size and impossibly stiff, what one "had to have" with Spectral gear back in the era, totally unrefined sounding cables compared to those from the Matrix generation). I like the generation of cables MIT made shortly before the introduction of 2C3D (those introduce a different kind of artificiality from early generation MIT, a "phasey" sound meant to give the impression of a more holographic soundstage, which is really unnecessary for high-level systems, it's a mystery to me why Spectral adopted those more recently), and have even had an opportunity to listen to the top models, which I couldn't afford (and really wouldn't want to either), and settled on a combination of Oracle Matrix and Matrix HD, i.e. the exact combination Spectral used during design of some of their latest amps, but ended up not adopting for their brand name cables because of the price. You've made me curious to try them in my tube system some day (where, of course, the impedance matching would have to set to high in order not to roll off treble).

[lwdp]

I used to sell MIT 750s 30 years ago. It was gorgeous, warm and NOT fatiguing. Then I sold a pair and my client phoned to let me know they sounded nothing like the set he had auditioned. After calling the distributor I was told they had been updated but the “old” 750s were still available if I really wanted them. I exchanged them to the delight of my customer and myself. The improved version sounded like your description. It sounded like they had changed from warm and musical to fatiguingly detailed. I still use and love my old 750s. Perhaps your distributor could still supply the good sounding ones? I’ve been retired too long to keep track. The ones I have are still the best sounding cables I’ve used. By the way we weren’t using any digital.

[guidobandido]

I would agree....the lower level (Terminator series) are my favorite. The newer ones are too technical / sterile for me. A good balance between old and new.

[gaborhorvath]

Hey there! Any experience on how does an MIT Shotgun xlr compares to anything in the AQ Elements series (e.g. Earth)?

[raymondyc]

I don't know if you want to hear MIT boxes in Audio Note cables. Before MIT came out with their own terminator boxes, Bruce Brisson made polyphasors meant for his cables. I tried those boxes with other cables and they don't sound right. This tech is only meant for their own stuff. Even though I use MIT cables, sometimes I wonder if I have MIT in too many places. I had a Levinson amp before and it did not mate well at all.

[varindersingh]

Sir how r scheu turntables ... one frnd was asking me how are Turntable .. As I knew u r using Scheu ... As both the turntable are available in India .. which one will you recommend ... He is rich guy and can afford both easily ... what would you recommend

[lambertinevanveldhuizen]

the amount of audiophile ignorance in this comment section is incredible. it's snake oil people