XLR interconnect shootout of 14 cables over 6 weeks

Leif S said:

Hi Lee,

Hopefully I can post this without getting my head chewed off lol. Both Transparent and MIT are filter cables. They are not neutral at all. So it really depends on the sonic signatures of the electronics and the speakers as well as the other cables you are using. If your electronics or speakers are bright, these type of cables may work very well. Just depends what you are trying to achieve. I can't run those on our speakers at all. Sucks all the life out of them. But on some systems they may be the bomb.

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Leif, I don't think anyone is going to chew off your head here at WBF. I am curious about which Transparent cables you used and whether or not it was an entire loom and if it was calibrated to your specific equipment. Regarding the MIT cables, which settings did you use? I have heard effects "sounding like" phase issues with MIT depending on how many poles of articulation were being used. I have always preferred the lowest number of poles.

Dealers in Europe and Asia demonstrate Magico speakers with Transparent cables and when I visited the Magico factory, they had both Transparent and MIT cables in their main demo/listening room hooked up to the equipment. I don't have the impression that Magico uses gear when testing their speakers that is "not neutral at all" unless they are just trying to see if their speakers are transparent enough to demonstrate gear changes.

A cable that has resistors, capacitors or inductors is a cable and an equalizer. There is one major exception. An XLR cabler with a small capacitor connecting the shield to pin1 of the connector is know as a hybrid ground.

microstrip said:

LeifS,

I must disagree with your view on Transparent and MIT cables. I can easily accept that do they not sound good with your speakers - there are not universal cables or truths in the high-end - but considering that these cables should be mainly used to tame bright systems is unfair. I have used them in neutral systems with great success. The networks are tuned well above 100 kHz and the sound of these cables is not only due to their networks, but to complex balance of all other typical cable parameters. In the same way you do not comment on technical aspects of your cables, Transparent and other cable manufacturers also do not explain it all.

Most people have the wrong idea about these cables because they do not follow Transparent rules - the speaker cables should not be used unless you use the source to preamplifier cable. And as LLoyd said, proper tuning is a must.

Many other cables can suck the life of certain systems and we (at less me and most WBF readers, probably not you) do not know why. But curiously many people feels compelled to debate network cables with authority.

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In hind sight I realize I probably never should of posted and I apologize for doing so. I see many members here use these cables and seem very pleased with their sound and that's all that matters.
As I said in my post, these types of cables may work very well with some systems. Saying these cables would possibly work great with speakers or electronics that may be a little bright was not a good thing to do. I am in no way saying that these type of cables are bad. They are just a different approach than mine. All of us have our listening preferences and they should all be respected. There is really no right or wrong and I think we can all agree to that. The bottom line is we set our systems up to what sounds best to us.

We design our speakers to have a flat response and to sound like live instruments. We choose our electronics to do the same and I want to capture what the designer of those electronics created. This is why I chose to use cables that are extremely neutral. I don't want to add another filter onto other filters. We have enough filters between our electronics and the speakers. To us, the signal transmission is of highest priority in our designs. If you really think about it, if you take 100% of a signal and add a filter, you no longer have 100% of a signal. It is no longer pure. You now have an altered signal.

For years now I have been listening to the Wilson's and Magico's at the shows. It wasn't until I went over to Steve Williams house that I heard a Wilson speaker sound like that. I also understand that I'm not just listening to the speakers, but to a whole system that sounded fantastic. But for me this was a real treat to hear the Wilson's without the filter type cables.

I again apologize for my post. I get overly passionate sometimes lol

Leif

Lee said:

This is a very interesting comparison but I am a bit baffled as I have had no luck at all with MIT cable in the past. In fact, in my systems it has been among the worst performing. Maybe I need to try it again.

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I have had lots of experience with MIT over the last 25+ years. IMHO, they work very well or they don't. Little in between. I forget which model they were but my system in the past which included all Spectral and Wilson they were amazing. My current system, REF10/GS150/NolaConcertGrands they were terrible and no cable dialed in like Nordost Valhalla 2 OR Rick Schultz's High Fidelity (sold them for the Valhalla as he didn't have XLR back then, which I would love to try). Two years ago I also had Constellation and Magico Q1 and wasn't crazy about the MIT (forget the model, but next to the top of the line XLR) which I compared to Transparent and MG Audio (a great bargain for what they do) and wasn't crazy about any of them as the system didn't do it for me.

I have owned and heard Wilson with both Transparent and MIT and from my perch, with these speakers and solid state, both cables are the one's to beat.

While I haven't made any significant changes to my system in the last 4+ years, except upgrading my MSB Diamond Plus IV to V and changing out my REF75 to the GS150 I would really like to try Rick Schultz's latest XLR cables. Anyone hear these? I am planning to try these after the New Year

Priaptor said:

I have had lots of experience with MIT over the last 25+ years. IMHO, they work very well or they don't. Little in between. I forget which model they were but my system in the past which included all Spectral and Wilson they were amazing. My current system, REF10/GS150/NolaConcertGrands they were terrible and no cable dialed in like Nordost Valhalla 2 OR Rick Schultz's High Fidelity (sold them for the Valhalla as he didn't have XLR back then, which I would love to try). Two years ago I also had Constellation and Magico Q1 and wasn't crazy about the MIT (forget the model, but next to the top of the line XLR) which I compared to Transparent and MG Audio (a great bargain for what they do) and wasn't crazy about any of them as the system didn't do it for me.

I have owned and heard Wilson with both Transparent and MIT and from my perch, with these speakers and solid state, both cables are the one's to beat.

While I haven't made any significant changes to my system in the last 4+ years, except upgrading my MSB Diamond Plus IV to V and changing out my REF75 to the GS150 I would really like to try Rick Schultz's latest XLR cables. Anyone hear these? I am planning to try these after the New Year

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That makes sense to me. I wish I could help you on the High Fidelity opinion but I have not tried them yet.

Lee said:

This is a very interesting comparison but I am a bit baffled as I have had no luck at all with MIT cable in the past. In fact, in my systems it has been among the worst performing. Maybe I need to try it again.

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Even more important than synergy with the components with networked cables such as MIT is that they're not built to compensate for each other, but work as neutral components, hence the question, did you go all-MIT before reaching this conclusion? Ironically, the fact that each networked cables "electrically compensates for itself" makes them the worst possible candidates to mix and match with other brands/non-networked cables, where normally, a low-inductance speaker cable compensates for a capacitive interconnect. What "doesn't sound right" mixing and matching is not the networked cable, but the emphasis put on the uncompensated characteristics of the "other" cable/brand. Mixing and matching non-networked cables, especially in tried and proven combinations, may work (relatively) fine apart from the group delay and phase problems that all impedance compensation causes (the reason MIT are often perceived as more spacious-sounding is not that they "do" something to the sound, but that they're built not to, so far as possible, of course). Needless to say, none of this applies to digital.

Greetings from Switzerland, David.