May 5, 2014

  • MIT AVt1 Optical Toslink, Part 3

    During the April 1993 Stereophile show in San Francisco, people were talking about Theta's new entry-level DAC, the $599 Cobalt 307. I saw product literature, but did not see the product itself. But then again, I was hot after Theta's new transport, the Data Basic. But what good is a transport, if you don't have a DAC?

    I already had an NAD 5000 CD player, which had an S/PDIF coaxial digital output. Since I had set my sights on the Theta Data Basic, I knew I had to get an affordable DAC, first. I did not like the Audio Alchemy DACs, which, for the time, were de rigueur. In late summer '93, San Francisco's Theta dealer, Audio Excellence, finally brought in a demo Theta Cobalt 307. The way it handled Foreigner's The Very Best...And Beyond convinced me to order one. The damn Cobalt 307 didn't arrive until late September! But anyway, the Cobalt 307 was my first product to sport a Tos-link connection.

    In early '94, I did indeed get a Theta Data Basic transport. It had AES/EBU (XLR) and S/PDIF (RCA) digital outputs, but not Tos-link.

    In March '95, I made one of my better audio purchases, the California Audio Labs Delta CD transport, which I've reviewed and showed many times in these pages. The Delta did indeed feature a Tos-link connection.

    In the mid-90s, audiophiles exerted their peer pressure, to use Kimber /Illuminati cables with Theta and CAL gear. Indeed, I got decent results with the D-60, PowerKord, and KCAG. While I was on one of my visits to Ultimate Sound, I overheard another customer suggesting MIT and XLO cables [Ultimate Sound carried, among others, Kimber, MIT, and XLO] on Theta and CAL. I did try MIT's Digital Reference and XLO's Signature 4.1. My ears told me that these two were better than the D-60, but peer pressure made me question myself.

    When I bought the Classe' Thirty preamp and CA-100 power amp, a few audiophiles told me to go with MIT cables. In fact, Classe' and Thiel (I had the CS.5 and CS1.5) had a special arrangement with MIT, to form a so-called Output Power Squared (OP2) system, comprising top-end models.
    IMG_0680
    My Classe', Theta, and Thiel gear is long gone. So how does the MIT AVt Tos-link optical cable [shown above into a NuForce DAC-9] fare?
    IMG_0677
    The first setup consists of Nintendo Wii U >> HDMI >> TV >> Tos-link >> DAC. Interestingly, the DAC-9's readout says it is locking into 48kHz. Here, the sound is mediocre cross the board. The sound via the Wii U's component video & stereo analog audio is superior.
    IMG_0751
    Okay, let's pull out the CAL Delta. Now the DAC-9 says it is locking into 44.1kHz. Once again, the sound is mediocre, lacking speed, detail, focus, and transparency. While the sound is inoffensive and "okay," music isn't compelling, interesting, or moving.