May 19, 2010

  • MIT MI-330 Plus Series Two, Part 13

    In 1990, it seemed that everyone wanted nothing to do with the 80s.  So when Corey Hart came out with Bang!, it not surprisingly went nowhere.  At the time, I was living in the dorms, and I may have been the only one who knew about Bang!  And if asked how I knew about it, I still have no clue.  Most likely, I found it at the college radio station, KZSC.  My friend Roger worked there.  The station kept getting new music, much of it tossed aside.  Bang! was probably in the heap of ignored CDs.

    It seemed like, every weekend, there was a party going on in the dorms.  I asked one of my neighbors, "Why are there all these parties, when there isn't a holiday?"

    He smiled, and matter-of-factly answered, "They're not necessarily about holidays.  They're about gettin' it on."

    Nowadays, the only parties I attend are children's birthdays.  The kids can't wait to open presents.  Likewise, the audiophiles for years could not wait to open the plastic inline boxes on MIT cables.  Problem is, if you own such a cable, why would you want to destroy it, by opening it up?

    Well, my audiophile group had an extra single MIT MI-330 Plus Series Two interconnect.  So, one guy decided to pry open the box.  After removing lots of blobby white glue, he pulled this out:

    I guess that black cylindrical passive part is a capacitor.  Does anyone know?  Anyway, a closer look reveals that the interconnect has three conductors.  One is encased in white wrap.  A second is encased in a black wrap.  The third is actually braided copper, lying just inside the outer jacket.  But within the network box, this third conductor is spun together, and tinned.

    One wire goes from the black-jacketed conductor to the capacitor.  Two wires go from the white-jacketed conductor to the capacitor.  A look at the RCA end shows that the white-jacketed conductor is the positive signal carrier.