Does raising speaker cables off the floor really make a big difference?
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. |
... it keeps going ... Maybe my posts are in a sort of superposition to your own, and if you never look at them or comment on mine, they won’t exist. But at this rate, without your being able to stop yourself, we’ll never know... ;-) We’re in this together, bud! |
| Post removed |
Sure it does.
Honest... I ran out of gas. I... I had a flat tire. I didn't have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn't come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake. A terrible flood. Locusts! Get those things on the ceiling to make sure the electrons have a clear path over the special silver-chrome-molybdenum-steel banana plugs with the special gold set screws down to those titanium drivers in that specially laminated under 36.4 lbs of pressure teak/walnut/oak box. Well, that's what the electrons TOLD me, anyway. Merry Christmas, pal. |
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. |
Yes. Carpet static electricity is a real issue, especially where I live. Also bought a "grounding pad" that I touch before I touch any of my gear. And I went cheap and used CD plastic cases. Total cost under $20. This raised some 70' of speaker cable off the carpet. Audible drop in system noise floor. Less noise, more music. Pretty simple concept. Whether you can hear or not depends on the overall transparency of your system. |
Static electricity can be caused by friction, electrostatic induction or electrostatic conduction. I am no physicist but it appears the static phenomena between the wire and the carpet fibers is caused by either induction or conduction. Charging by conduction involves the contact of a charged object to a neutral object. In contrast to induction, where the charged object is brought near but never contacted to the object being charged, conduction charging involves making the physical connection of the charged object to the neutral object. I’ll leave it to others to determine which is the cause. FWIW, static is more likely to exist in a drier climate versus one that has higher humidity. That may be the reason some experience no sonic impact from elevating the speaker wire from the carpet. If you some cd’s, you can try this simple experiment (raise wires off the floor with the case) for $0.00 and a couple of minutes of your time and determine if you can hear the difference or not. |
I have to go wit the "made no difference at all" crowd. I have tried this in my systems as well as having others I know try it. Not many of us as there were only four total but not one of us heard a difference. And if there was actually some difference it was not audible, and certainly not worth the price of any expensive cable elevators. The most common method used were wood blocks, and all of us tried the Cardas elevators. Again, like everything audio, it is so system, room and home / environment dependent. One just has to try it on their own, or get enough feedback from places like here to make your own informed decision. |
Why was this thread not started in the " CABLES " section ? Lots of posts in 10 days here about such a significant, audible improvement to be had, by doing this. I find, isolating all of my cables, mechanically away from floors and walls, and eliminate all negative, electrical, static, mechanical, and audible influences, the cables do not exist. @geoffkait ....I follow you completely, on the subject. |
I have a suggestion. Does the insulator on a speaker cable store and re-release an electric field capable of doing something to the sound? A way to find out is connect one cable pair to an amplifier but not to a speaker. If you use tube amplifiers, especially SET, you won't hurt the amplifier and it should be safe with much solid state. Connect another cable pair to a speaker, the more sensitive the speaker the better' but not to an amplifier. Tape the two cables against each other so the amplifier voltage in one cable pair is able to store the electric energy in the dipole molecules in the cables connected to the speaker. Turn up the music on the amplifier to the one set of cables and place your ear against the speaker with its disconnected cable. I do not think you will be able to hear the micro-volt effect of molecular dipoles tilting and returning to normal. That is one test where there is no danger of any placebo effect in a listening test. |
I like everything in my system to be "just so"- e.g. cables organized, components perfectly aligned and centered in the rack, speakers positioned precisely, speaker cables run neatly, etc. 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. I have heard no benefit to speaker cables being raised from the floor but it does look neat and orderly and I can understand how that works. |
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? |
@simonmoon "
He likes those porcelain ceramic insulators. They can be found for a lot less money than the ones made for audio." Isn't this a bit of a tip that some audio vendors can be quite predatory? Also, I am suspicious of any tweak that is reported to take a few days or weeks to deliver it's benefits. That makes A-B comparisons extremely unreliable and magnifies the probability of user bias developing. |
This concept is the epitome of snake oil, confirmed by GK's embrace of it. Try it it with styrofoam cups or empty rolls of toilet tissue for an experiment. Trust your ears and watch your pocketbooks, that is my best advice, or you might be apt to buy goofy crystals thinking it will enhance the sound of your system. Too funny. |
nonoise, Do the tea light holders from IKEA actually make a difference in sound from having them on the floor? Have you compared them to other lifters that do make a difference? I currently have no lifters and have ceramic tile over cement in a dedicated basement room. My system is very nice sounding. At this point, I've been working on tweaks to make the sound even better--several SR products and will be getting more PPT products to go with the TC paste. Bob |
Bob It is doubtful you would benefit much. I have the same set up of ceramic tile over thick solid slab of concrete and it was opined it probably would not change much. Again like your self I am very happy with the sound but if it is cheap I will give anything a try. And I still might on this just out of curiosity. |
I performed an experiment a few years back when my system needed to be taken completely apart and moved to a different room in the house. I had an approximate total 300' of speaker cable running the tri-amped system. I know sounds ridiculous (actually great). The new location required much less cabling, but being a lazy SOB and doing this in stages I hadn't cut and soldered ends on the cable, so they remained way too long. I simply coiled them on the floor, yes bass mids and highs 10 gauge cable makes quite a stack of copper. An audiophile buddy correctly pointed out that those cables had to be inducing some kinda voltages in each other due to proximity. I agreed, but I can't hear it. Remember new room new SQ but no apparent problems. Fat story slim..........I only turned on the bass amps (two ARC mono-blocks) and let some music rip, greater than a kilowatt going to the two woofers. And guess watt (pun intended) neither the mid or highs made a peep! I was very amazed. Not a perfect experiment by any means, but that is watt happened. Hence I'm not into cable elevators. One last thing (before someone asks) all of the drivers will play the other drivers freqs. Tried that as well although at a very low volume. The tweeter will make some "bass" noises and the woofer will make some tweeter noises. The mid-range is almost full range. I never argue about tweaks, waste of time. |
@dorkwad , Before I got the Ikea tea light holders I was using Yoplait Oui glass yogurt jars. The Ikea holders made no difference in sound than the Yoplait jars, but they look much nicer. Also, I don't think it would make a difference with your tile setup. You can only try it yourself with something cheap for an experiment to see if you would benefit from it, like uberwaltz said. All the best, Nonoise |
| Post removed |
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! |
I have no clue as to why folks think "raising wire off the floor" is a "cash cow tweak". There are numerous ways to do this and spend a pittance of money. Cups, CD cases, etc. Seems to me these individuals have little interest in experimenting with their systems to improve the overall sound. One must ask why they are commenting on something when they have no practical experience to back up their claim. |
Because he is obviously too lazy or too jaded or just trolling or just doesn’t care about the sound quality of his system and then has the arrogance to criticize a tweak he hasn’t even tried even though it costs almost nothing (or $0.00) and takes a matter of minutes to determine its efficacy. I love it when people "judge" something without any basis for that judgement. Ultimate hypocrisy. As Forest Gump said, stupid is as stupid does. |
bubinga What do you think is actually happening when you raise your cables from your floor? What was affecting the sound with the cables on the floor? How? With what effects? If for instance you are posting some constant sonic effect on the signal, what’s the explanation? If it’s some constant background noise, presumably if you have your system on without music playing you should be able to hear this “noise.” Do you? I have cable running through walls and along shag rugs. I can’t hear a thing coming from my speakers when music isn’t playing so what might I expect to hear a difference with cables raised? |
What do you think is actually happening when you raise your cables from your floor? What was affecting the sound with the cables on the floor? How? With what effects? Well, that is a pretty low bar. Oh well. Pretend its serious, answer it serious. What do you think is actually happening when you raise your cables from your floor? We don't have to think, by which I think you mean guess, because this has been tested. If its distance then the higher the better. But testing with the same materials doing the lifting shows no such relationship. If its vibration then materials known to have excellent vibration control characteristics should work better. This has been tested and revealed to be not only correct, but the opposite. Materials with known bad vibration control characteristics actually work better. So its not vibration control. If its electric charges then known electrical insulators should work better. Bingo! Ceramic insulators perform best of all materials tested. This suggests its something to do with electric charges. What was affecting the sound with the cables on the floor? How? Again, evidence suggests it was electric charges. They do tend to propagate along surfaces, you know. There are even electrical standards used in industry by which these things are rated. When comparisons are made guess what? The insulators with the highest kV ratings sound the best. With what effects? The effects are the sound has grain, glare, backgrounds are less black, air around images less open, and the whole presentation is flatter, less 3D, and smaller. Ceramic insulators that raise cables up off the floor improve all these effects. If for instance you are posting some constant sonic effect on the signal, what’s the explanation? If it’s some constant background noise, presumably if you have your system on without music playing you should be able to hear this “noise.” Pretty sure you meant to say imposing not posting. Posting makes no sense. In any case you would be right, if only you were right about it being constant. Why would it be constant? What on Earth could possibly be adding a constant noise? We go to great lengths to design power supplies that are what? Constant! That's how hard it is to be constant! Not to mention, if it was constant, well we sure wouldn't need elevators. We'd simply figure out what it is and filter it out. So constant is the last thing it is. By the way, you see what I'm doing? Taking ordinary basic stuff everyone knows, really obvious stuff in fact, not the slightest bit exceptional or controversial, combining it with a few simple observations and then applying basic 101 level deductive logic. I have cable running through walls and along shag rugs. I can’t hear a thing coming from my speakers when music isn’t playing so what might I expect to hear a difference with cables raised? Well you could try and see for yourself. Or just read through the info on-line, including even in this very thread. No? Hmmm. Okay so here we go. Sorry if this is plodding slow and basic but... its really basic stuff. Its just connecting the dots thats hard. Electric current cannot move through a wire without creating a proportional magnetic field around that wire. Also, magnetic fields cannot cross a wire without inducing a current in that wire. It then follows that electric charges anywhere near the cable will in some way however small induce a signal in the wire. So there's one "why" right there. The music signal itself generates electric charges all around the cable. To the extent they are allowed to build up whatever noise and smearing they cause will build up as well. But wait, there's more! Insulators are imperfect. Insulators tend to absorb a small amount of energy which is then released back into the wire, the time delay smearing the signal. Air is a pretty good insulator. Carpet, wood, not so much. Nowhere near as good as the expensive carefully chosen dielectrics used in a lot of high end cables either. So there's another reason. But wait, there's more- and this is the kicker! Do you have any idea the size of the tiniest squiggles on a record? Its roughly the size of a large organic molecule. In other words, really, really small. Yet we hear these tiny details. When you drop something on the floor and look where it went, you know by sound alone where to look. When speakers are placed too near a side wall the imaging is ruined. With experimentation we learn sounds arriving within 3 to 5 milliseconds are responsible. Sound travels about one foot per millisecond. So we put our speakers three to five feet away from the side walls and the imaging is great. We could go on and on all day like this. One after another, and not a one of em the least bit controversial or even secret. Just basic stuff everyone knows. Or if they don't, can confirm in like ten seconds with a web browser. A whole lot of things that may seem utterly unrelated until you realize what they all have in common is humans being able to discern incredibly tiny little details. Well, some of us, anyway. |
