Cable elevators - conventional wisdom wrong?


Reluctant to put any considerable money in them, the reasons for using cable elevators seemed intuitively correct to me: decouple cables mechanically from vibration and insulate them from the carpet's static. I have therefore built cheap elevators myself using Lego building blocks. (Plastic with a more or less complex internal structure; moreover, there is enormous shaping flexibility, for instance you can also build gates with suspended strings on which to rest the cables)
In their advertisement/report on the Dark Field elevators, Shunyata now claim that conventional elevators are actually (very?) detrimental in that they enable a strong static field to build up between cable and floor causing signal degradation.
Can anyone with more technical knowledge than I have assess how serious the described effect is likely to be? Would there, theoretically, be less distortion with cables lying on the floor? Has anyone actually experienced this?
karelfd

Showing 6 responses by splaskin

Set the CD case as a t-pee and rest the cable on top. I ordered some Walpuna Sound wood risers to try.
Today I replaced the 3 Shunyata Dark Field elevators with 2 CD cases under my speaker cables as suggested by Ted. I am using Tesla Apex cables.

All I can say is WOW!! The CD cases were much better sounding. The Dark Field elevators are dark sounding with a closed in high end and muted high end transients.

Ted, you never cease to amaze me!

Steve
Today I replaced the CD cases with wood blocks. The wood sounded even better. The choice of riser will depend on your system and taste. I hope the myrtle wood risers I ordered come soon.
The DFE are not the best choice with Synergistic Research Apex speaker cables, but can be very effective with other brands. I finally found that the Waipuna Sound solid risers were the best sounding elevators for my Apex cables.
The plastic seemed a little bright; the wood more relaxed but with the open high end and detail the plastic gave me.