My review of the MIT AVt MA series on Dagogo.com should answer much of what's being sought here. :)
Nolitan, Regarding your last questions: The only way to ascertain precisely what any cable brand does is to outfit the entire system with that cable brand. Mixing will not tell you entirely what they sound like. Even different models of the same brand have very distinct differences. It's common for the upper echelon cables to bring "more of the same" flavor of the cables.
They can certainly be mixed with other brands. But, I recommend you keep the L/R channels the same. ;) Over time I have found more delight in keeping systems largely intact with one brand versus a hodge-podge of cables. I will occasionally tune a rig with substitution of one set of IC's or PC's.
If you try one set of interconnects it's interacting with the others as well, but you can still get sense of what it can bring to the party. As you keep replacing elements of the cabling with more of the same brand the sound will morph. Whether you love it or not is for your ears to determine.
Finally, the quality of the rig is a profound influence on the Efficacy (whether it's worth it) of cables. If you have an under $10k rig I would not recommend chasing high cost cables. If your rig is upwards of $30k it becomes important and at $50k (this is a rough measurement) it becomes critical. People who by default stick with econo wires on very high end rigs run a high percentage chance that they are choking the performance of the system. On the highest end systems it's of paramount importance to get an extremely well matched set of cables.
In all seriousness, if you already have aftermarket IC's, then you may first want to try an MIT power cord; I also wrote a reivew of some MIT power cord offerings. You will find nearly as much an influence from changing two or three power cords as changing speaker cables! I have done so dozens of times over the years and on a repeated basis in listening nowadays.
Nolitan, Regarding your last questions: The only way to ascertain precisely what any cable brand does is to outfit the entire system with that cable brand. Mixing will not tell you entirely what they sound like. Even different models of the same brand have very distinct differences. It's common for the upper echelon cables to bring "more of the same" flavor of the cables.
They can certainly be mixed with other brands. But, I recommend you keep the L/R channels the same. ;) Over time I have found more delight in keeping systems largely intact with one brand versus a hodge-podge of cables. I will occasionally tune a rig with substitution of one set of IC's or PC's.
If you try one set of interconnects it's interacting with the others as well, but you can still get sense of what it can bring to the party. As you keep replacing elements of the cabling with more of the same brand the sound will morph. Whether you love it or not is for your ears to determine.
Finally, the quality of the rig is a profound influence on the Efficacy (whether it's worth it) of cables. If you have an under $10k rig I would not recommend chasing high cost cables. If your rig is upwards of $30k it becomes important and at $50k (this is a rough measurement) it becomes critical. People who by default stick with econo wires on very high end rigs run a high percentage chance that they are choking the performance of the system. On the highest end systems it's of paramount importance to get an extremely well matched set of cables.
In all seriousness, if you already have aftermarket IC's, then you may first want to try an MIT power cord; I also wrote a reivew of some MIT power cord offerings. You will find nearly as much an influence from changing two or three power cords as changing speaker cables! I have done so dozens of times over the years and on a repeated basis in listening nowadays.