Good point. Testing sometimes requires a more careful and thorough approach. People oft jump to conclusions too quickly.
Does raising speaker cables off the floor really make a big difference?
My cables are laying on the floor (in a mess), would raising them off the floor really make much of a difference? The problem is they are quite wide and too long
http://mgaudiodesign.com/planus3.htm so any suggested props are appreciated! Cheers
Showing 48 responses by geoffkait
uberwaltz9,831 posts02-27-2020 2:04pm I haven’t followed this thread,A wise decision David...... >>>>>Unlike yourself. 🤗 |
And No. 10 on the list from What HiFi is ... drum roll...... “So, how come a CD sounds better if you stop it and then press play, rather than playing it from pause? Because, dear readers, we can assure you they do. We haven’t heard a definitive explanation. Nevertheless, in our experience doing things this way just sounds that bit better.” >>>>What the ding dong!! I implore you, gentle readers, can that be true? If it Is true there’s gotta be a pop quiz. |
kudelka8 Might work, might not. Only way to know is to try. I did ,and it made no difference. i spray my cables down with anti static spray ever couple days, and that makes for cleaner sounding music. And it likely does about the same thing as raising cables is supposed to do. I also so shut off my power conditioner when i’m not using it, and reboot my modem every couple of days (my system is server-based), and run a demag track every two days. Same general purpose. Music just sounds smoother, more lifelike, less grainy, more open. Like cable lifting is supposed to do. Everything you you try is going to be system and room dependent. Even when something makes a difference, it might well not be a good difference. And even good differences are almost certainly going to be incremental" there are no magic bullets out there. >>>>There are at least a few reasons why some audiophiles don’t get the results they were expecting, not all of which are flattering to the audiophile. Also, magnetism is not one of the reasons why cables should be lifted off the floor. Vibration is one of the reasons, though. |
prof I love the sound of my CJ tube amplification and always go back to it after trying solid state. Never done a "blind test." Even when some "objectivists" think tube amps are silly. I swoon over the sound of my "crazy expensive" (to the average joe), cartridge etc. No talk of blind testing, all subjective. >>>>Gosh, don’t go out on a limb or anything. prof I ALSO am aware of the general features of, and rational for, the scientific empirical method. And I can’t just pretend that audio is magically excepted from the complexities that bedevil any other careful empirical inquiry - especially the unreliability built in to human subjectivity.(And this is something the "blind test naysayers" seem to routinely misunderstand: accepting that human subjectivity is unreliable doesn’t mean "a subjective impression is wrong and due to bias" or "what you think you heard wasn’t real." It only means that in many cases it *could* be error, so it can be hard to unravel the objective facts from the subjective impressions). >>>>Oh, geez, just when you were doing so well. Blind tests don’t mean anything. You were on the right track with complexities, but then you went off the rails with your usual bind test hornswoggle. It’s the inability of humans to control all the physical variables. Or know all the variables, for that matter. It has virtually nothing to do with psychological issues. No, it’s not hard to unravel the objective facts from the subjective hornswoggle. |
glupson "There was an immediate collapse in the soundstage when they were removed."It must have collapsed all the way to the floor. >>>>Luckily for glubson he got out just in time from where he was looking up girls’ dresses. Close, call, glubby! |
andy2 Not saying to agree or disagree. But I’ll end with this quote as previously. "Extraordinary claim requires extraordinary evidence." >>>>For one thing it’s not really an extraordinary claim. It’s not like say, demagnetizing CDs or all wires are directional. For another thing, the person you say is the author of that quote, Carl Sagan was about to have Ellie Arroway try to travel through a black hole in order to get to Vega in his novel (and later move), Contact 📡 until Kip Thorne pointed out to him that she Ellie would surely die if she tried to enter a black hole. She would be torn into a million bits. Duh! So he decided to use a wormhole instead of a black hole as the faster than light means of travel to Vega. Which, actually, is also a shitty idea. You know, since worm holes are very much theoretical in nature. |
tablejockey Not a disbeliever OR a believer. I like posting this link link now and then when this subject on speaker cable pops up. Food for thought. http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm#conditioner >>>>Roger Russell’s mindset was more prevalent back in the 80s and 90s but I would imagine these days it’s pretty irrelevant and passé. Yes, I know what you’re thinking - “but there’s a lot of guys like Roger right here on these threads.” No offense to you or Roger but too much has happened already to have any wish to put the genie 🧞♂️ back in the bottle. |
drbarney Has anyone calculated what difference such things done to make cables unreasonably expensive makes? Let us take an example. Many cable manufacturers warn us of high frequency rolloff caused by skin effect. They make cables like ribbons or bundle them in litz configuration where each strand of wire in individually insulated so every conductor is too thin to be affected by skin effect. But here is some physical calculation of how much rolloff can be expected with 8 gauge speaker wires in series with a 4 Ohm speaker. (I use magnetic planar speakers which do not vary in their reactance the way dynamic drivers do.) Skin effect will cause 4 meters of 8 gauge wire to have a resistance of 0.0164 Ohms at 20 kHz compared to a DC resistance of 0.00842 Ohms where more current can go through the center of the wire. Put this in series with 4 Ohms and calculate the difference between 4.0164 and 4.00842. Take the ratio and the log of this ratio times 20 and the skin effect attenuates the signal less than 1/200 dB. That is why I am a little suspicious of over-priced cables and the questionable physics describing why you need them. The placebo effect is another matter which does not help. That is why I think blind testing should be used more often. Can the dielectric effect of the floor on a cable induce a large enough fraction of a micro-volt to hear in the speakers? I do not claim some things could never make a difference one can hear but let the claims be reasonable. >>>>While those are interesting points no one is saying that skin effect OR a change to dielectric characteristics is responsible for the degradation of the signal when cables are lying directly on the carpet or floor. The consensus is that the degradation is caused by static electric charges and/or structureborne vibration. |
jnorris2005 I can’t believe the ghost of Enid Lumley is still with us. That woman has done more to advance the snake oil industry than anyone else. I remember her going on about the audio qualities of different kinds of shellac on floors. I still have many of the Absolute Sound issues where she writes in. >>>>Enid may have been slow but she was ahead of you. |
People! Let’s not forget the vibration transmitted by the floor to the cables. Has anyone tried springs under cables or power cords? Hmmmmmm Lots of things in this hobby are invisible! - magnetic fields, electric fields, vibration, acoustic waves, electromagnetic waves, RFI/EMI. Pop quiz: why does external vibration affect the audio signal in cables? Free prize to first correct answer. |
The reason for “isolating speakers” is not really to prevent vibrations from the floor being transmitted to the speakers, although that would occur, it’s to prevent the vibrations from speaker cabinets being transmitted to the front end electronics via the floor (mechanical feedback). Isolation systems are two-way 🔚🔜 systems, as illustrated in that Townshend YouTube video - they attenuate vibrations in both directions! I suggest isolating subwoofers for two reasons - (1) they are easier to isolate and (2) their frequencies are lower than speakers and do more damage potentially. In a perfect world everything would be isolated - cables, power supplies, DAC, solid state amplifier. The reason speakers with high center of gravity are a problem is that springs under load lack sufficient later support unless the springs are placed far apart from each other in a wide pattern. That wide pattern of springs is much more stable. Small springs are more stable than taller springs. |
Weird that someone would bring up the subject of money on this particular thread since it’s not really a money issue. It’s whether you buy into the concept or not. All it takes is a little imagination. As has been pointed out many times, even on this thread, there are free solutions available to anyone. Even someone who lives in a treehouse. It’s threads like this that illuminate the large schism that exists between the average Joe Blow and advanced audiophiles. No offense to anyone in particular. |
mijostyn audiozenology, this is a good example of why you should never trust anyone’s hearing. I have also seen instances in which these "AB" comparisons were rigged by someone switching EQ curves or phasing. If you can not think of a reasonable reason why something should work it usually does not. Cable elevators are a good example of this. There is no reason and they don’t work, not even a little except in the minds of the easily influenced. >>>I nominate that post for the most hilarious post of the week. That’s gold, Jerry, gold!! |
audiozenology68 posts12-18-2019 8:23amIt is us that holds the charge when we get shocked, not the carpet. If your humidity is really low, that could be having a real effect on the sound (more attenuation at high frequencies). Get a humidifier. Cable elevators can’t fix humidity. >>>I wooden be too sure about that. Objects hold static electric charge, some more than others. Human beans 🔜attract🔚 surplus electrons from objects with static charge due to electric potential. Like lightning. That’s kind of the whole point of getting the cables elevated from the carpet. That’s also why it is a good idea to rub CDs and cables and cords down with Bounce anti-static towelettes or use a de-ionizer. A humidifier just makes it harder for static electric charges to build up on objects. |
jughead You don’t need risers with well designed cables spend the money on music and don’t buy into the snake oil Cash cow tweak. Audio is getting as bad as the video game industry $$$$$$$$ >>>>Gosh, you mean they have cables now that are self-levitating? Hey, that’s cool, but I already suggested magnetic levitation pods for cables last week. Hel-loo! |
avanti1960 I have the personality that I need visual order. Without judging anyone I believe that this is a form of expectation bias, a clean car with a fresh oil change seems to run better than a dirty one, a neat orderly system sounds better than a cobbled disorganized mess. >>>>>>Have you consulted an OCD specialist? |
tweak1 We all know that signal is flowing through the cables and that most carpeting can develop an electrostatic charge that can zap us (discharge) when we shuffle across the floor when the weather is cool and humidity is low. >>>>Some know, some don’t. What many more don’t know perhaps is that the floor transfers vibration to the cables and power cords. Which is a little weird since a lot of folks are under the impression the signal in wires is vibratory or not influenced by vibration. 😬 Pop Quiz: What does vibration interfere with in cables and cords? Current? Voltage? The audio waveform? The electromagnetic wave? Photons? The vibration problem is why suspending cables is 🔜more effective🔚 than elevating them. You kill two birds with one stone. That’s why Enid Lumley suspended her cables with thread inside her Cable Tunnels. |