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Are you buying the right interconnects ?

In the late 90's I purchased a pair of Paradigm Active 20 speakers from Definitive Audio. Prior to buying I purchased a 3 meter pair of MIT interconnects from Audio Advisor. Regular retail price was $700 and they were on sale for 50% off. 
Hooked every thing up and waited a month for a full burn in. Wasn't satisfied. I thought, whats going on here? So I decided to try the Paradigm stock interconnects that came with the speakers. They were twenty feet long and looked really, really cheap like you find in a department store. They cost $20 a pair. I switched them out and was blown away.
The sound from those 20's suddenly sounded, rich, full, very sweet top end and the bass sharpened up to complete focus. I called Paradigm and spoke to an engineer and asked why the sound difference? He said the MIT's are not a match since they are a high impedance/capacitance cable and it has nothing to with the price. He mentioned the impedance/capacitance value numbers vary with different brands. He said you should always talk to the engineers at the amp/preamp companies, and ask which cable values would best match their components. Once you get the specs, go to a local electronic supply house, the one's that sell cables to TV station's and radio station's. Give the measurements to the salesperson to find a match and your good to go. 
audiozen
atdavid
736 posts
 
Unless the MIT cable was specifically designed to have high impedance and roll off the highs, which is completely possible, then the highs should not be affected and the bass not at all. TV and Radio stations will tend to buy from specialty distributors, so this advice seems odd. Most could not tell you the capacitance of their cables I suspect.

Teo_Audio, just looked at your website after reading your point and it is not making sense to me. Impedance matching is a factor of matching source impedance and load impedance to the cables. That would be a factor of unit resistance, unit inductance, and unit capacitance, the latter being a factor of conductor distance, shape and dielectric, inductance primarily spacing and material, and unit resistance obviously exclusive to the conductor. With load impedances 20-100K ohms, matching is near impossible if not impossible as connectors to match that do not exist. Ditto on the source impedance but at least close.
Your cables if I am reading this have a liquid at room temperature conductive, it looks to be pretty much the same as what is in a thermometer? That would conduct significantly poorer than a copper or silver conductor, or even that material when solid. That resistance would increase impedance a bit in cable, but I don’t see how that would make a change significant enough for cable matching. Can you shed more light on that?
oddiofyl's avatar
oddiofyl
3,755 posts
 
I had a similar experience with MIT interconnects.....  I had a bad one and swapped it out with a pair of Nordost Blue Heaven.  Night and day, it was like I pulled a blanket off my speakers.   Crack one of those "Terminator" boxes open and you will find a 20 cent resistor and a 50 cent cap.   

I swapped out my tuner , preamp to amp , and DAC with cables that do not have a "network" and I am hearing tons of high frequency information that was robbed with the MIT.   FWIW  I had a Transparent Link II that I cracked open the box and it was pretty pathetic what's inside.   I took the other Link and put it between my sub DSP and sub and it attenuated the output....   so it seems they are not a pure conduit for the music.   
tom6897's avatar
tom6897
1,484 posts
 
@oddiofyl, I had the experience with MIT interconnects long ago. Replaced with a mid level Monster cable (early 80’s), it was like night and day. 
tweak1
3,645 posts
 
mcarbon said

Because what you will find, there really are cables out there that are so freakishly good they defy any reasonable explanation. Get some Synergistic Research Element CTS, but not unless and until you are ready to have your world rocked. Then when you’ve been amazed by them for a few weeks send their Active Shielding power supplies off to Michael Spallone to have their diodes and caps upgraded.


Seems like boxes on cables are Band-Aids; as in weren't designed right in the first place


Be interesting to compare them vs WireWorlds on WireWorlds Cable Comparator  https://www.wireworldcable.com/
bigkidz
3,376 posts
 

I got off the cable merry-go-round a long time ago.  Began upgrading parts and lowering AC noise.  It was easy for me because of repairing components, I could hear the different parts to see if there were any improvements and was able to compare them to what I owned.  Recently heard the impact of the Plitron toroidal choke.  It did create a much blacker background that the Hammond choke I was using, etc.

If you are commenting on all of this stuff, look inside your components and tell me the parts quality versus the price.  Most parts are pretty low grade for the amount of money you pay.  There is a manufacturer that uses filters with their speakers.  MSRP $1300 but inside $128 in parts like WIMA capacitors and cheap resistors.  Time to learn how to do this stuff for yourselves.

Happy Listening.

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