Another potentially controversial question...
 

Core question:

Are the "network boxes" found in the middle or ends of some cable manufactures products a good approach to address the issues of noise potentially present in cables by attempting to address the cable acting as an antenna and removing frequencies into the gigahertz range?

Do these boxes attempt to address inductive and capacitive reactance? I seem to remember reading that somewhere.

How are Shunyata cables superior to this network box approach? Can or do these boxes hurt more than they help?

Currently I do own mid-tier cables with the network boxes. I have had them for years. While I do not have anything negative to say, I sometimes wonder if they do behave weird. For example, I was watching Apollo 13 the other day and the rocket launch produced audible distortion through the system that I would not expect. Later playing music no issues whatsoever ever. Wondering if these filter networks did not like the low frequencies they were asked to pass.

Oh, XLR or RCA for interconnects. I can accommodate both.

Thanks-
RL

I’ve heard some good things from MIT’s cables and still use MIT speaker cables (but only because I have to). What I have found though is that Shunyata offers a far bigger bang for the buck. A Shunyata Anaconda replaced a pricey MIT Oracle interconnect maybe 18 months ago. Tremendous upgrade.

I have a Spectral amp, and they require that I use certain MIT products. My plan is to eventually move on from this amp and then go with Shunyata Alpha speaker cables.

My two cents: don’t get caught up in whether or not there is a network box. That’s just the designer’s means to a particular end. Better to borrow some cables to hear the end result for yourself.

I've never understand what MIT meant by "poles of articulation". They talk about it and infer that "more are better" but they never discuss exactly what functional response(s) these "poles of articulation" drives or impact. If they are doing something along with respect to impacting a functional response, I'd like to see the transfer function behind what it is they are doing. Maybe I'll do a patent search on them...

Have a look through their white papers: https://mitcables.com/mit-technical-whitepapers/

My interpretation: MIT attempts to correct the power factor at various frequencies to minimize reactive losses and energy storage. A cable with 5 poles has adjustments made at only 5 frequencies across the audio band. A cable with 100 poles would have adjustments made at 100 frequencies across the same band.

While I'm no engineer and don't pretend to understand what their network boxes are doing ... in my system I moved from Shunyata Sigma SC and Anaconda IC to MIT Oracle and the sound was quite a bit "clearer". Certainly not brighter but maybe more focused is a better word. Also was more open sounding. YMMV for sure so listening in your own system is the best way to decide for yourself! That said ... the Oracle was quite a bit more expensive so Shunyata does offer a really good value for sure. Often in our hobby getting the last 10% requires a lot more money and we each have to decide for ourselves if its better and/or worth it.

George

Spectral amps require MIT cables because they oscillate at high frequencies if you use speaker cables with higher capacitance.

The MIT networks vary but many include an inductor in series with the + lead. The value of the inductor varies - in some cases the inductive reactance is over an ohm at 20 kHz.

In newer MIT cables there is a network of passive components that is said to provide even articulation over the audio band.

“Poles of articulation” is a term that does not exist in audio engineering literature outside of MIT product collateral. It is a completely made up term. They define it in this video:

https://youtu.be/bgK87tmRVeY

I will leave it to the viewer to determine if this is solid engineering or tendentious bum fodder.

In any case these network boxes may have an impact on radiated or conducted noise susceptibility.

Here is one of Bruce Brisson’s patents for networks attached to a cable:
US6658119B1
This is also the youngest Brisson patent filed in 1998 and granted in 2003.

Here is another one for noise suppression networks:

US4954787A

I have found 12 Brisson patents in total. The assignee for most is Coast Business Credit, A division of Southern Pacific Bank. I have not found any patents assigned to Musical Interface Technologies. They may have another legal name.

Tom

I don't think there are controversies about Network cable products as they have been in the market for years, but they do represent a rather obvious counterpoint to Shunyata's design philosophy.

Taking a broad view of general design philosophy that represents a defining difference between our approach and either a network product - in terms of cable or a transformer/regenerator - in power is that we prioritize the original signal's preservation and passive isolation, rather than implementing any form of signal alteration. That would be the nutshell difference in general terms.

Differences in cable design are sometimes hard to quantify because depending on the cable product, little is divulged beyond basics. It would appear that the core tech of network cable design centers around a Zobel Network of one kind or another. I'm sure there are notable distinctions between brands and differences in construction quality, parts, network complexity and the base ingenuity of the network design--and pricing that can run from affordable to well-- not so affordable.

Making any broad statement about efficacy or tech legitimacy would be insufficient given the many apparent variables. I have heard Spectral systems with MIT that sounded very impressive in different contexts, for example.

Shunyata designed cable products and technologies favor signal preservation from the distortions inherent in and around conductors and from the environment. For signal cable, a core tech would start with the zi-tron circuit, which minimizes dielectric absorption--preventing signal loss/distortion through the dielectric (patent is published). Our VTX, hollow core, OCC and OFE copper conductors are used to reduce skin-effect distortion. Sonic welding is used for termination to virtually eliminate junction impedance. HARP technology used in Sigma speaker cables reduces current-mode resonance and the TAP technology used in Sigma interconnects reduces trans-axial polarization distortion. Our own KPIP (Kinetic Phase Inversion Process) is used to condition all conductors so that break-in is minimized and the conductors are optimized for signal transfer far beyond what we used to achieve with cryogenics. In the high-speed digital/usb/ethernet cables, we use a 1/4 speed extrusion process to precision match conductor and shield elements that has had people talking in terms of the results.

The sum of these many parts/processes is that the entire cable, conductors, terminations, metals, junctions, as well as the external and internal sources of distortion are micro-analyzed and addressed. You could term this a wholistic design approach buttressed by Caelin's background in military low-level signal acquisition science and research.

From our POV, using this form of materials-science, low-impedance design approach insures consistent and favorable results regardless of application. Factoring in purposefully lower retail prices increase the exposure of our finest technologies. The success we have had in medical, recording, film and mastering would support that we've made some good choices.

Best regards,

Grant

And, they look less cluttered and are a lot easier to handle than cables with network boxes.

:goodpost:

True 'dat! Or, dielectric bias system "bricks" for that matter.