MIT Cable-Theory of Operation??


I am interested in the operating principle if any behind the MIT design ( other than to make a huge profit).I have read the "reflected energy" and "signal transfer" jargon. Have any engineers ever taken these apart or run a swept tone through the cable to see what it does to a waveform? Not trying to poo poo the cable or empirical results, just wondered why there seems to be so much secrecy behind the technology and lack of info on the technology behind the design.Dont those little boxes pique anyones curiosity? I know as with any product these have their fans and detractors but wanted to hear from the test bench side.
zenmusic
If you are trying to justify this hobby from the perspective of a test bench, you may not be in the right forum.
Brian Damkroger covers it pretty well in his Stereophile review in the March 1999 issue. Regarding secrecy; Bruce Brisson and MIT list the following patents, which apply to MIT products. You are free to look them up: 4994686; 4538023; 4718100; 4954787; 5142252; D314551
MIT Cables have been addressed by this forum in the past. Here is a thread where we have expressed numerous observations and opinions that may help answer some of your questions (although I would not say we all covered ourselves with glory):

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?fcabl&1034867178&openfrom&1&4#1
Joe Abrams has it right. Impedance matching, group delay compensation, power factor correction, zobel filtering (lpf), and high frequency control via ferrite rings have all been part of MIT's game plan at one time or another. You can safely assume that other manufacturers have measured their effectiveness, though I wouldn't anticipate published results on the performance of these, or any other, cables, especially under a variety of real world load conditions, grounding variations etc. It's really too bad this doesn't happen. Many issues in cable design could stand a good airing out.