MIT Love 'em or Hate 'em

Carl is extremely knowledgeable, owns an excellent system but he didn't like it if you DISAGREED WITH HIM! I have seen him on the asylum dishing out good advice. Good thread Bundy, MIT will guarantee you 50 responses. MIT is the bomb!!! (that will get 20 more!)

I'm back. Unlike a good bunch of you I don't live on the threads but do enjoy a life outside of this little area of virtuality.

Maxxie - I know your stuff all too well. Been in this game for a long long time and owned many many things. You would do well to forget about how insulted you are and take some decent advice for once.

Far from clueless, kids. You may not like me, or how I say what I have to say - but I speak from a very long time of experience. I've discovered two kinds of people in this business: Music lovers and equipment worshippers. Almost without fail the people that own "magicbox" cables have neatly fallen into the equipment worshipping category. That's just the way it is.

As for my address being "bogus" - it was fine up until two days ago, when I switched it because of some quite nasty emails I was receiving for sharing my personal opinions.

Filterboys - enjoy yourselves. Compromise is compromise is compromise. Magicboxes sound great on systems that need the repair, but veil the performance of a truly well matched high-resolution audio system.

See you in the trenches, ladies.

Asa - in answer to your questions

Everything is a filter, for sure. Now - take a $20,000 amplifier, for instance. Of what use is a truly extreme filter (2nd order low pass) to that $20k amp? Well, if it is really useful, then the amplifier manufacturer should have made it $21,000 and put some paralelled caps in to "power factor correct" his amp's obvious flaw.

Un boxed wire vs. boxed wire: Wire is a filter in the same way that water is an acid (or alkaline) - in the presence of real acid (or alkaline) water is just water. Likewise, in the presence of a real filter wire is just wire.

The basis of my opinion has been laid out in several technical arguments here on the thread. Look back and read.

Meanwhile, I've also had experience with Transparent boxes a coupe of years ago, and once had kooky MIT digital cable that had dipswitches on it. Both quite obviously changed things, veiled things in the systems. The Transparent boxes I was running were loudspeaker cables between a Cello Duet 350 and a pair of Avalon Ascents. The digital cable stood between a WADIA 6 and a Muse Model 2. No matter what little setting I chose, it didn't come close to a normal AES/EBU cable.

As far as philosophical methodology: One can arrive at a basically satisfactory result by consistently adding band aids until your system is EQ'd to the point that you no longer hate it. One can also take the efficient approach and seek the help of an experienced pro who can help to match your preamp/amp/speakers. With a good choice in the latter you will get off of the moving sidewalk that has many upgrading and crossgrading forever and just settle into music. In the former, one winds up trying to match the system to the magicboxes often times.

You can't expect to have a high res system with a mid res preamplifier. First order of business is to get a fantastic preamplifier, then have it matched to a fantastic amplifier. Then the only upgrade path you'd be following is the one for speakers. Start small and move up as money allows. No magic box cable is going to turn a $1,000 pair of speakers into a $5,000 pair of speakers, but some folks will wind up blowing another few grand on these magic cables instead of looking for more effective roads to upgrade.

Unclekrusty, I appreciate your recognition that your statements are your opinion. Is there a particular reason you present it with such venom?

As for me, I appreciated how MIT speaker cables sounded in my last system. I am now quite willing to audition others and really don't care whether I end up with a "box" or not. At the end, there's nothing magic but the music.

I wish I had the uncanny ability to assess the sound of components that I have never heard. This ability is amazing and miraculous! If I could do that I might publish a review mag and call it "The Immaculate Preconception". I would never have to have my findings and opinions tainted by actually having the sound of the component under review penetrate my ear. This would be the seminal journal of Hi End sound, and I would not even have to physically write it, as it would be handed down to me on stone tablets directly from the ultimate audio being himself unclekreusty.

I would know that the sound of a power cable can't affect the sound of a pre amp with out having to turn it on. I would know the affect of changing the caps in a circuit through devine intervention, and would not even have to smell the solder. I would know the effect of every cable on every system from a distance as great as many states! I would not have to take the room or source into account as my intuition is so great that listening is inessential.

I will throw away 30 years of listening experience and any comparisons I have done of cables. The fact that I now don't have to even hook things up will save me a great deal of time and money. Before this ability I was open minded to the idea that there were perhaps new cables that might sound better in my system, but now that I have this mystical ability there is no need to try or to listen. I also now know the flaws and faults all of the systems that you simple mortales here at AudioGon, parish the thought, listen to.

Line up, sign up, and re-enlist today in my audio Jehad that will eliminate the infadels that form their opinions by experience rather than buying my magazine. Praise the Lord and pass the amunition! Help me crush the Great Satin
of "listening".

Wait,I gotta run, there is one of those damn Auido Witnesses leaving his damn pamphlet, the "IAR" in my door, and I need to chace them off .

From: "The Further Misadventures of Maxgain, Audio Gunslinger"