Download The MIT Cables, Terminators, and Hoses

volume 20
The High End Journal™
issue 103
reprinted with permission
The MIT Cables,
Terminators, and
Hoses
AND FRANK DORIS, OH MY!
W
HEN
AUDIOPHILES
think of state-ofthe-art, expensive, technologically trickedout cable, the first name that comes to
mind is MIT. That’s because of their pioneering
efforts in the field of High End cable design, beginning in the late Seventies when Bruce Brisson
designed the sonically distinguished Interlink
Reference for Monster Cable. Not long after that
initial effort, Brisson began the MIT (Music Interface Technologies) company to develop more
advanced designs, the first of which, the MH-750
Music Hose speaker cable, rocked the audiophile world, not only because of its appearance
(no one had ever seen High End speaker cable
the diameter of a garden hose before) and price
(the then-astonishing $32 per foot), but also its
performance—the MH-750 was sonic leagues
beyond all previous speaker cables, especially in
its doubled-up (and correspondingly increased
price) “Shotgun” configuration. The counterpart
MI-330 interconnect soon followed in 1987, and
this had, if anything, even more of a dramatic impact on the audiophile community as it simply
annihilated all other interconnects, allowing High
End systems to attain a then-undreamed-of level
of performance.
Brisson continued to advance his designs
over the years, and was the first to introduce termination boxes into his cables—having invested
substantial sums into research and development—but much of MIT’s initial cachet had worn
off, since an entire High End cable industry had
developed in the wake of their initial Shotgun
blast.1 Dozens of manufacturers and designs
sprang up to siphon the profits of a now-lucrative
market. As in any technological field, the designs
ranged from solidly engineered to overpriced
mediocrity. This, combined with the audiophile’s
tendency to embrace the novel, the cable-of-themonth with the hot buzz (and to confuse a sonic
difference with a sonic improvement), resulted in
MIT’s audiophile status going from the vanguard
to just-another-good-cable, maybe the best,
maybe not—although you’d see certain audiophiles and manufacturers (Spectral and Wilson
Audio foremost among them) who would insist
on using nothing but MIT cable in their systems,
year in and year out.
As far as my personal reviewing perspective
was concerned—I’m known as a person who is
open-minded, willing to try anything when it
comes to auditioning cable. As a result, I’ve
heard designs from (deep breath) A.R.T., Acarian
Systems, AudioQuest, Cardas, Cello, CoganHall, Ensemble, Expressive Technologies, FM
Acoustics, Finestra Design Group, FMS, Forsell
Mediphon, Goldmund, Grado, Kimber Kable,
Monster Cable, Music Metre, Nirvana, Music and
Sound Imports, OCOS, Siltech, Straight Wire,
Magnan, Millennium, Tara Labs, Tice Audio,
Transparent Audio, WireWorld, and XLO Electric
in (mostly) my system as well as Harry’s, along
with various MIT designs. Nevertheless, I hadn’t
heard Brisson and company’s latest version of
the MH-750 with Terminator, and MI-330 with
Terminator, until one day the impulse hit me. The
impulse was partially prompted by my having listened to what is perceived as MIT’s direct competition—the Transparent Audio Laboratory cables, a favorite—quite extensively, and didn’t
think it was fair to commit a word to print without
hearing the latest MIT cables.
This proved to be a far more complex task
than simply swapping out the cables in my system, breaking them in, and listening. It is a truism,
of which experienced reviewers are well aware,
that complex system interactions exist between
cables, electronics, and speakers—impedance
matches/mismatches; considerations of complex impedances and capacitances versus frequency; propagation effects; grounding, shielding, and induced noise and hum; cables acting as
antennas or RF coils; connector and interface
matches/mismatches—to say nothing of the effects of different geometries, conductors, dielectrics, connectors, and the like. (And you
thought us audio reviewers just plopped down in
front of a bunch of cool, freely-loaned gear and
partied, occasionally getting motivated enough
to write a review.) It is also a truism that experienced reviewers think they can get a quick fix on
a cable by putting it in and listening, without substituting any of the system’s components to factor out the sound of the cable from the interaction
effects. This cuts both ways. On the one hand,
one usually can get an idea of a cable’s sound by
doing this. On the other hand, the sound of a
cable does not exist in and of itself—it de facto
must work as part of a system, much as a tube
has no sound apart from the circuit in which it is
installed. In any case, the MIT cable would not
allow such quick and-dirty evaluation, as the following tale will attest.
I first installed the full complement of cable—
phono and line-level interconnect (the phono interconnect features terminator boxes so heavy I
had to weigh down the preamp with a VPI brick),
digital interface cable, and a bi-wired set of
speaker cable. The first thing that struck me—
1 To this day, I’ve never been told exactly what’s in
those termination boxes. But what could it be, besides an
impedance-matching/optimizing network? Eye of newt
and toe of frog? And while I’m at it, let me complain about
those gritty-feeling, metal-on-metal collet connectors on
the ends of the interconnects—a curious flaw in such a
premium product.
Reviews
and I use the word “struck” deliberately—was
the incredible (and I use that word deliberately,
too) transient attack. Fast transient sounds such
as the celeste on Lieutenant Kije [LSC-2150],
Willie Nelson’s nylon string guitar on Stardust
[Columbia JC35305], Milt Jackson’s vibraphone
on Bags Meets Wes[Original Jazz Classics OJC234], and certain percussion instruments, had
such a realistic initial attack that they did not
sound like they were reproduced in the usual
sense. Rather, they actually sounded closer to
the real thing in their initial sonic signature than a
reproduced facsimile! The effect was, literally,
startling—to hear a plucked string or struck percussion instrument’s attack sound so lifelike as
to make me gasp in amazement.
The second sonic amazement was the resolution of detail. Talk about the old cliché of hearing things on the recording you didn’t know were
there—on Kraftwerk’s The Mix [EMI Elektrola 1C
568-7 96650-2], a (digital) recording I’ve listened
to hundreds of times, what I thought was a synthesizer playing on “The Robots” was revealed to
actually be four synths playing in unison, tuned in
three different octaves, in four different locations
in space! A similar increase in resolution was
heard on a few of my reference orchestral
recordings—I could hear individual players within string sections to an unprecedented degree.
Concurrent with the improved transient and detail resolution was a reduction in the noise floor.
The sonic background was cleaner and quieter;
noise that I thought was the result of the electronics or record noise turned out not to be.
Nevertheless, I had qualms regarding the
bass. Although superbly defined harmonically
(the sound of bow-on-string on cellos and basses was, again, amazingly close to real life), it
sounded rolled off and lean. I wasn’t sure
whether this bass was in fact accurate, and that
the Transparent MusicWave Ultra I’d been using
previously was bloated; or if I was experiencing a
negative interaction; or if in fact the MIT cable
rolled off in the bass. I didn’t want to believe this
last fact, not after hearing the cable in other systems where it sounded right. Time for more experimentation. (Unfortunately, the use of tube
amplification was precluded from these experiments, as the cable cannot be used with tube
amps. In fact, a former TAS reviewer once fried a
pair of Conrad-Johnson Premier Eights….)
The next step in the testing was instructive, if
unsuccessful. I had taken delivery of the Concentric Speaker Technology Reference Monitor
speaker system, and the manufacturer had
specifically told me that MIT cable was not a
good match for their speakers, so I had to take
down the MIT cable. As they came down for the
initial setup, I had to switch back to a cable to
their liking—in this case, back to Transparent all
around. We got the speakers roughed-in, nothing more, as they were equipped with a new pair
of too-bright tweeters that required considerable
break-in. I also had to use a tube amplifier (a
McIntosh MC275 re-issue) on the top end of the
system, doubly precluding the use of the MIT. In
the course of experimenting with optimizing the
system, I naturally installed the MIT cable at one
point. You see, it’s one of my few perversities—
when a manufacturer recommends that I not try
something, my impulse is to try it immediately.
The S ound
Since I needed another solid-state amp for the
test, I brought home the Chord 1200 so highly
recommended by REG in Issue 99. I hooked the
Levinson 23 on top and used the Chord to power
the subwoofers.
Well, this sounded horrible. I couldn’t listen
for more than one session—the sound was
grainy, steely, irritating, lifeless, flat, and completely non-dimensional. I wasted little time reversing the amplifiers, Chord on top, Levinson on
the bottom—and this was much better. The
sound got its spooky detail and transient capability back, with a huge soundfield extending far
beyond the outside edges of the speakers. Still,
it wasn’t right—there was a dramatic midbass
suckout present that could not be alleviated by
any degree of speaker/subwoofer placement,
and the lower bass was feeble at best. The
midrange also sounded a bit too hard. I put the
Transparent cable back in, which brought the
bass back, but lost some of that magical resolution and transient response. At this point, I was
lost at sea. I didn’t know whether the speakers,
the cable, or both were at fault and I spent the
rest of the day drinking beer and watching TV in a
state of depression. (Note that I was using the
Transparent Ultra series, second-from-the-top of
their Reference series, and hence didn’t know
whether I should send back all the cable in my
house and start from scratch with the Reference
in the hopes of finally getting everything to click).
Sonic salvation came as a result of an accident. A resistor in one of the Concentric speaker
crossovers blew (on a weekend in the middle of
testing, naturally). This weekend I really wanted
to listen to music rather than watch TV in an ethylized funk, so I hauled back in the Alon IIs and
bi-wired them with the Chord 1200.
Nothing could have prepared me for the result of this combination—the finest sound I have
ever experienced in my listening room, by a titanic margin. If I’d thought the Alons were overachievers before, I now realized that, if anything,
I’d underestimated them. And that REG was right
about the Chord—under the right circumstances, it is a superlative performer. The sound
was even more detailed than previously, with no
grain or sense of distortion whatsoever. That
spectacular transient response was even more
so. I could not believe the realism of the triangles
and other percussion on Gershwin’s An Ameri can in Paris [RCA LSC-2367], and the vibraphone
on Bags and Wes was even more present. (I
could almost tell what grade of hardness of rubber mallet Hampton was using.) The soundstage
extended a couple of feet more beyond the
speakers, and behind, with excellent delineation
of recording spaces. (I could now begin to differentiate between the sizes and shapes of halls on
various RCA Living Stereos, something I could
only get a sense, rather than an accurate picture
of, in dozens of other system configurations.)
Dynamic contrasts were dramatically improved, as the music breathed more effortlessly.
Quiet passages were rendered more cleanly,
with less smearing and obscuration, and loud
passages hung together more coherently, with
less strain. Image dimensionality and specificity
were also improved to a degree of excellence of
which this writer thought the system incapable,
with vocalists and instruments, on a recording
which allowed it, achieving that rare, reach-outand-touch-them quality that almost fools the listener into believing actual physical entities are
present within the listening environment.
The upper midrange and highs were extended without being bright or glary, and remarkably
open and uncongested. The midrange was wonderfully lucid, harmonically defined, and tonally
neutral—not plump, lean, romantically softened,
or harmonically threadbare—simply as right as I
have ever heard it in my home. But wait, there’s
more, as the Ginsu knife commercials say.
In fact, I saved the best for last, and that was
the mind-boggling improvement in the bass.
Obviously, the previous complaint of lean
bass was a system interaction after all, as the
Chord/MIT/Alon bass now extended a good halfoctave below any of the many other amp/cable
combinations tried in the past. It was also far
tighter and better damped with, along with that
fantastic transient response (try the electronic
kick drum on New Order’s “Blue Monday” [Factory Factus 10]), almost no overhang, excellent
image placement (the bass instruments on An
American in Paris were never more well-defined,
spatially), and, again—I know I keep dwelling on
this, but you really do almost have to hear it to
believe it—almost unbelievable harmonic definition and accuracy. You will not believe what this
cable does to well-recorded jazz trio LPs such as
Bill Evans at Town Hall Volume One [Verve V68683] or, for that matter, large-ensemble recordings such as the sensational new Duke Ellington
tribute CD, Mr. Gentle, Mr. Cool, by David “Fathead” Newman [Kokopelli KOKO 1300]. Even
synthesizer recordings take on new-found musical credibility. After all, when one hears more of
what was on the master tape, one gets a stronger
emotional connection to the artist’s original intent, simply because one can hear more of it!
All these sonic improvements, regardless of
how impressive, would mean nothing if the overall sonic gestalt were not convincing. We’ve all
heard systems that did most things right but still
left us cold, as the various parts of the musical
fabric were audibly disconnected. Not so with
the MIT CVT with Terminator series, which, when
working in the right system (as it was in my final
testing incarnation), affords a remarkably convincing illusion of musical reality. So many things
are done right—tonal balance, staging, imaging,
dynamics, resolution—with such a lack of perceived distortion, that it enables one to be effortlessly drawn into the music, rather than focus on
obvious flaws. (Ever notice that, paradoxically,
when a system does many things right, one focuses all the more on what’s left that’s wrong—
more so than if one were listening to a sonically
less-distinguished but better balanced system?
These days, I look forward to hearing my stereo
with delightful anticipation, something I haven’t
been able to say since, well, 1992. You may have
to struggle to get your system to optimally synergize with the MIT cable—in fact, it’s a strong possibility—but if you can get your system to sing as
I did mine, you will be rewarded by a level of performance and a level of emotional involvement
with the music you probably thought impossible.
I know I did.
—FD
Reviews
Manufacturer:
MIT (Music Interface Technologies)
3037 Grass Valley Highway
Auburn, California 90232
916.888.0394
Bruce Brisson
Manufacturer loan
n/a
MI-330 CVT Plus Terminator
interconnect: $1,800 per
meter pair; MI-330 Plus
Terminator phono interconnect: $2,200; MH-750 Plus
Terminator speaker cable:
$4,500 per 8-foot pair;
Terminator 3 Digital Interface
cable: $99.95
Warranty: One year
Designer:
Source:
Serial Number:
Price:
FD’S ASSOCIATED EQUIPMENT
Front End (digital):
Philips CD-80 CD player (used as transport),
Theta Data Basic transport; Theta Cobalt 307,
Theta DSPro Basic, Audio Alchemy DACIn-The-Box D/A converters
Front End (analogue):
Sumiko Blue Point Special cartridge; Well Tempered
arm with Sumiko Analogue Survival Kit arm wrap;
Goldmund Studio turntable
Electronics:
Audible Illusions Modulus 3 preamplifier (tested
with Amperex 6922, Amperex 6DJ8 “Bugle Boys,”
and Sovtek 6922 tubes); Mark Levinson No. 23,
Chord 1200 amplifiers
Speakers:
Acarian Systems Alon II, Concentric Speaker Technology Reference Monitor System with subwoofers
Manufacturer’s Response:
I want to thank Frank for the thorough manner
in which he reviewed the MH-750 CVT Plus Terminator and MI-330 CVT Plus Terminator interfaces. When changing cables, certain things
didn’t add up in Frank’s mind—things that
seemed confusing and unpredictable. Concerned for the manufacturer and for the accuracy
of the information he would ultimately deliver to
TAS readers, Frank took the time to get to the
bottom of the issue and didn’t give up until his
system sounded correct and he was sure he had
the right answers. HP says TAS is on the way
back; could this type of reviewing be just the beginning of something new?
Over the years many reviewers have asked
how a cable interfacing two pieces of equipment
The So und
in a system could possibly change that system’s
tonality and imaging characteristics to the large
degree they hear. How can this happen; does it
make sense? Picking up where Frank left off, I
would like to try to shed additional light on this
complex subject.
Reviewing in a linear system: The words “linear” and “predictable” can be interchanged, as
can “non-linear” and “unpredictable.” A linear
system, then, is one that we can predict will behave in a certain way under controlled circumstances. A linear audio system makes minimal
changes to the characteristics of the source from
the output of that source to the end—the sound
coming out of the speakers. With such a system,
we can judge the behavior of a new component
on an even playing field. We can say, when we
hear the changes it makes in our linear system,
that we are confident that the new component
made the change, rather than some synergistic
interaction that we don’t know about.
In order for a system to be linear, however,
every component in it must be linear. You can’t
correct the non-linearities in one component by
adding the non-linearities of another. Two
wrongs don’t make a right!
In my experience, systems that take you by
surprise and overwhelm you with unpredictable
results possess one or more non-linear components. That is, something in the system is making
unacceptable changes to the music signal. Remove the non-linearity completely, and you will
have a better system. Touch or tickle the non-linearity, and you will modify or change it, maybe
move it around. Feed or enhance the non-linearity, and you will just make the situation worse.
Reviewing can be seen as a form of test, with
the measurement provided through the reviewer’s ears. Engineers use test equipment, not their
ears, to provide measured data for interpretation.
In the first instance, the interpretation of the system must satisfy the criteria of the reviewer’s
ears. In the second, interpretation of the measured data must satisfy the engineer’s model.
Today, our industry really requires both tests, because neither alone tells the whole story.
Today, test-bench measurements characterizing the non-linear activity of a device,
using a linear test architecture, are common.
However, even the best test and measurement
engineers have difficulty measuring non-linear
distortions in a non-linear system. Often, this
form of measurement is impossible. So, if engineers cannot measure non-linear distortions
within a non-linear system, pity the poor reviewer
who must review a single piece of equipment in a
non-linear system! How can he or she know what
is affecting what in this type of system?
Frank has done a superb job of sorting
through his system’s non-linearities and changing the test system’s architecture to get his answers. As anyone in this business knows, this
can be a dizzying and draining experience.
Let’s look for a moment at how the audio system works.
First, what constitutes a system? In general, a
system is a combination of interconnected components performing a specific function. A system
usually has two or more inputs and outputs interconnected so that the output of one component
serves as the input to another. Home audio sys-
tems consist of a number of components connected in series: CD player to preamplifier to amplifier to loudspeakers.
A system is characterized by its inputs, its
outputs (or responses), and the laws of operation
adequate to describe that system. In electrical
systems, the laws of operation are the familiar
voltage-current relationships for the resistors,
capacitors, inductors, transformers, transistors,
etc. Using these laws, we can derive mathematical equations relating the outputs to the inputs.
Second, let’s define a musical signal in elec trical terms: In its acoustic state, we perceive
music as a difference in acoustic pressure. For
example, the human vocal mechanism produces
speech by creating fluctuations in acoustic pressure. By using a microphone to sense variations
in acoustic pressure, we convert these varying
acoustic pressures into an electrical signal—voltages and currents. A speaker senses varying
electrical voltages and currents, and converts the
signals back to their acoustical state.
In its electrical state, a music signal is comprised of voltages and currents. These have electric and magnetic fields and fluxes associated
with them. These fields and fluxes store energy
(or charge) and discharge energy. This energy
can provide work or power. These fields and fluxes also constitute the state of the component
part. If we evaluate the energy storage and discharge of capacitors and inductors in time, we
will know the input-output state of that capacitor
or inductor at any given instant.
Understanding passive components: Capacitors, inductors, and resistors are called passive
components because they provide no volume
gain, as a transistor or tube does. But they do
something else. Simply put, a capacitor stores
voltage in its electrostatic field, and an inductor
stores current in its magnetic field. Because pure
capacitance and inductance store voltages and
currents for 90 degrees and then return them
back to the circuit or network, these components
can be said to have a “memory.” A pure resistance has no memory, for it does not store voltage or current. Instead, it consumes them as
power and turns them into heat. This is the way it
happens in the ideal or linear world. However,
these pure—and linear—components exist only
in the ideal world of mathematics. In the real
world, such as our audio systems, the behavior is
more complicated.
Capacitors and linearity: Like a system, a
component part can be linear or non-linear. A
passive component’s ability to charge and discharge is directly related to its linearity. A capacitor has a value expressed in Farads, and a phase
angle or time relationship expressed as –90 degrees. Remember that a capacitor has a memory
related to voltage. Because of this, its voltage
lags its current by a phase angle of 90 degrees.
The linear capacitor will retain its value and
phase angle to a varying voltage level. (A capacitor’s value and voltage are usually given in its
specifications, so that the designer knows the
behavior to expect from this component part.) In
addition, the linear capacitor will not be time
varying. That is, it will retain its value and phase
angle over a specified range of frequencies.
(Richard Marsh, one of MIT’s engineers, exposed
the problem of capacitor performance to the
Reviews
audio community in 1980 in a two-part cover article in Audio magazine. He showed how different dielectrics respond to this type of criteria over
different audio frequencies.)
Inductance and linearity: An inductor has a
value expressed in Henries and a phase angle of
+90 degrees. An inductor has a memory related
to current, because it stores current in its field for
90 degrees. This means the inductor’s voltage
leads the current by 90 degrees. A linear inductor
will retain its value and phase angle to a varying
current level. (An inductor’s value and amperage
are usually given in its specs.) The linear inductor, like the linear capacitor, will not be time varying; it will retain its value and phase angle over a
specified range of frequencies.
Non-linearity in circuits with both capacitance
and inductance: In audio systems, capacitors
and inductors do not behave ideally. In the real
world, they are always to some degree non-linear
at some frequency, at some level of voltage or
current. And this affects the sound of our systems. Remember that the stored energy in the
memory of inductors and capacitors is music information, translated, as we have said, into voltages and currents. When these two elements are
returned to the circuit in phase—in the proper
time relationship—they add together optimally,
and aid each other linearly and predictably. The
music is therefore reproduced properly. If the
voltage and current are not in phase, however,
the current and voltage fields won’t add together
to aid each other. Instead they add together un predictably, and some degree of non-linear activity takes place. How can we know what this
will sound like? We can’t. This behavior is unpredictable.
Understanding cable functioning: A cable has
capacitance, inductance, and resistance. Its inductance comes from the coiled wires in its construction. The positive and negative sides of the
cable form the parallel plates of a capacitor. Resistance is part of the total opposition to the alternating current in a circuit. If we recall once
more that music signals traveling through an
audio system are nothing more than voltages
and currents, we can understand that a cable interfacing components in a stereo system will
charge—that is, store—the music signal in its capacitive and inductive fields. The resistive elements in the cable, if linear, will “consume” part
of the music and turn it into heat (power). If nonlinear, however, the resistive elements will generate noise to some degree. Most of today’s High
End cables generate more noise from these elements than they consume as power.
The fields of inductors and capacitors, once
charged, contain energy. We at MIT refer to
these fields as “the Energy Components.” Because the music signal is stored and transported
within the fields of a cable’s capacitive and inductive elements, and the resistive elements can
create noise, the linearity of these three elements
directly affects the sound of the system the cables are interfacing.
A pure capacitance or inductance has a
memory lasting 90 degrees, as I stated earlier. A
speaker cable, as an example, charges and discharges its capacitive and inductive field twice
each, for a total of four times, per Hertz. The en-
The So und
ergy, when returned in phase (that is, in the proper time relationships) back to the circuit, is then
converted to power at the speaker. The energy
that is not returned in phase is either consumed
by the resistance of the cable, or exchanged for
power at the load (speaker) at the wrong time. In
a stereo system, this out of phase energy can
change the tonality of that system and affect its
imaging ability.
Sonic behavior of cables: With this general
knowledge of passive electronic component behavior, you can begin to listen to cables with a
better understanding of why they do what they
do. To give you a general idea of how these distortion mechanisms manifest themselves sonically, let me list a few of the more common ones
I continually encounter.
Most cables fail at the frequency extremes of
audio. They tend to have difficulties transporting
low signal levels or high signal levels at one or
both frequency extremes. Most cables function
properly only when transporting moderate signal
levels, and only in the middle octaves.
Low signal levels are accompanied by a form
of uncertainty, which manifests itself as a form of
analogue jitter, forming a noise component in the
lower octaves. If we stretch things, we can say
this distortion is similar to the more familiar digital jitter. Because of this uncorrelated jitter or
noise, most cables won’t image in the lower frequencies, particularly when played at low-tomoderate listening levels. This is because the uncorrelated jitter or noise causes the left and right
speaker to move out of synchrony—not together, but to a different beat, so to speak.
Most cables fail to transport in-phase energy
in the lower audio octaves, particularly at low signal levels. Some are level sensitive and will pass
in-phase power only at high signal levels. Because of this level sensitivity, some of these cables must be played at very loud levels to extract
any realistic bass weight. Turn the volume
down—and the bass goes away!
At the other extreme, some cables inject
noise or instabilities into the high frequencies,
usually in the last octave or two, particularly highlevel signals. Cables exhibiting a mild form of this
distortion will sound all right at moderate listening levels in the high frequencies, but in loud passages, the image stretches vertically in the last
octave or two. These cables may also bloat the
image in the affected octaves, pushing it well out
into the room, while seeming to push the low frequencies to the rear of the speakers. In the worst
cases, these cables can take on a hard and harsh
sound, particularly on the leading edge of the
transient.
Distortion and the reviewer: These distortion
mechanisms and resulting sonic manifestations
are an obvious problem for all reviewers. How
can they start to sort things out? How can they
determine what is causing the tweeters to roll off,
for example, when they change the cable? Was it
because the speaker was designed with a cable
that added a noise component or instability at
those frequencies? Is the new cable faulty? Or is
it instead properly engineered, while the discernible roll-off is the result of a resistor the designer put into the crossover network to attenuate the tweeter to match the non-linear cable
he/she designed with? (My favorite gripe: Nonlinear inductors used in the woofer section of
many speakers. If you cannot predict the phase
angle of the inductor to a given current, you cannot predict the bass output of the woofer.)
In Sum: I stated earlier that measuring nonlinear activity in a linear test architecture is possible—and common—while measuring non-linear
distortions in a non-linear system can be impossible. A High End reviewer today, “measuring”
with his ears, is up against the same set of problems engineers are faced with. A reviewer, for example, can easily evaluate a cable installed in a
linear system, one whose source and load are linear. But the same reviewer will be hard pressed
to evaluate that cable in a non-linear system, one
whose source or load is not linear. The best of
today’s High End products are extremely revealing. They are capable of revealing the linear—the
faithful rendition of the source and system—or
the non-linearities of a mismatched system.
In our industry, our common goal today is
surely to assemble and listen to a linear system,
because as Frank put it, “It affords an illusion of
musical reality which is remarkably convincing.
So many things are done right—tonal balance,
staging, imaging, dynamics, resolution—with
such a lack of perceived distortion, that it enables one to be effortlessly drawn into the music,
rather than focus on obvious flaws.”
Frank’s statements are the (predictable!) results you would expect with a linear cable interfacing a linear system. Congratulations, Frank,
your hard work and ability to recognize non-linear system interactions have provided a major
step forward in audio reviewing.
—Bruce A. Brisson
MIT, Music Interface Technologies
This review has been reprinted in its entirety
from The Absolute Sound, with not one word
censored or deleted. The Absolute Sound is the
journal of High End audio and reports its findings
on audio equipment and recordings without fear
of or favor from any commercial interests. Its literate evaluations and tests take place in real
space, hence, music (the absolute sound) is the
measure of reference. Subscriptions may be obtained from this business office at a very special
yearly rate of $54.95 including shipping & handling. You may call us directly with your Amex,
Visa, or MasterCard in hand at 516-676-2830 or
mail your check to The Absolute Sound, P.O.
Box 360, Sea Cliff, New York 11579.
MIT® products are manufactured and sold by
CVTL, Inc. 4130 Citrus Ave, #9
Rocklin, CA 95677
Phone: 916-625-0129 Fax: 916-625-0149