A couple of details on the Spectral amps (which are the ones requiring MIT cabling)... they feature no input choke or output inductor (hence the MHz specs; OK the inferior 'S' versions do have the input choke and other input-stage differences), so they depend on the MIT filters to do the job, and probably consider the overall cable construction superior.
From my perspective, I buy them because I have to, and you are not the first one to claim that Nordost would do a better job. I usually don't buy anything I cannot analyze technically, and MIT cables are a black box. Case in point are "their" patents on power conditioning - if you look closely at these patents on the MIT web site, they seem to be claimed to be theirs; yet if you read them on uspto.gov, they are owned by a third company and assigned to one Richard Marsh (presumably of Marsh Sound Design now?). It's unknown what the relation to MIT these have, and I suspect they simply have an exclusive license. Yet, all the patents appear to be simple circuits, therefore, I just refuse to pay their insane prices.
LOL... the damp cloth is cleaning the stators, not the mylar
but I get the point. I've only done this once to prove the point about humidity.As mentioned a few days ago, replacing the Kimber Select KS-1120 with the KS-1030 made a significant overall improvement, including the highs, and I can now enjoy the cymbals... I take warble-tone measurements every time I make a change, and here's what I noticed with the KS-1030:
1) I can now cross the sub over at 27Hz (from 25Hz), and there is no impact on higher bass frequencies as it used (crossing over at 27Hz used to add 2dB at 31.5, 40, 50Hz before). This gives me the very deep visceral impact of bass drums that I was missing (e.g. original Telarc Carl Orff Carmina Burana)
2) There are measurable drops of about 2-3dB in the 2-4kHz region from the previous readings! (Strictly speaking, these measurements do not have a standard humidity level reference, so humidity may be a factor to a certain degree - but I hear these differences, so they are real). Even if the differences are realistically much less, say 0.5-1dB, they still are very significant.
3) I now have flat response in the 125Hz to 250Hz region (used to have a drop of about 2dB).
All of these have made for a more realistic timbre.
One last thing on this Telarc CD: I used to think it was junk, with compressed chorus dynamics, and confused and collapsed soundstage. The LP version that I have heard was full of life, so I always blamed the CD transfer. But every system upgrade has rendered a sizable improvement on this CD, to the point that, for the first time now, I am fully enjoying it. The dynamics are spectacular, the chorus and soundstage are huge with no sense of compression, and I am sure there is room for more improvement with better speakers. This is probably the most difficult-to-reproduce piece of music that I have, yet it's not really reference quality, but it's extremely demanding.
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