I have seen a lot of ideas concerning Cable lifters

I use some Sake cups that I picked up at a thrift store.

Made my own with leftover 2x4. All you need is a saw. Will stain later

@evank 

Yours are the most sensible, although anything will work. I use split PVC pipe. 

I’ll probably bite the bullet and go with Furutech lifters as reviews/reports are fairly consistent in changes/improvements.  

Some use ceramic insulators. I use balsa wood with a piece of foam window roll insulation as a damper.

Inexpensive is some foam pipe insulation, you could wrap the entire length of a cable with it for pennies v. dollars....

And it even has an adhesive closure so it can’t get knocked off, perhaps of importance when you’ve sunk big bucks into that cable... ;)

I also use redwood salvaged from my Pergola deck. My son sanded and stained then sealed.  They look awesome. 

Ordered 40 of these from a wood shop on Esty, very nice and inexpensive! they can be turned around with the arch on the bottom of a little better height. The whole cable lifter thing doesn’t seem to make a difference to me but why not. 🤷🏼‍♂️

I have found that if your room is at ground level and you have no basement or crawl space below, cable risers can be really helpful.  If your listening room is on the second floor or you have a basement underneath, they probably won’t do much.

JD

I had a bunch of Vibrapods left over and just sitting in a parts drawer so I put them to use as cable lifters. Not sexy, and I'm really not certain of any improvement in sound quality but my cables are off the floor high enough for the Palmetto bugs (roaches) to pass under without complaint.

Hello All,

Cable lifters?  Before you All give advice, please explain what and why there is such a thing.  

I make my wife hold up the cables while I listen to music.

I've convinced her that the electromagnetic energy that dissipates through her hands improves memory.   

Cable lifters... what are we looking for here - anti-vibration or magnetic insulation, electronic insulation, a combination of some or all of these attributes? Or are we just lifting them off the floor for the sake of getting them away from a surface?

I’m seeing lifters made of wood, glass, vitreous china, etc., - all different materials offering differing levels of various aspects of insulation.

Could someone elaborate on what physics problem we are trying to overcome with these? With that info, we can make informed decision about design and materials.

Without any other info, other than ’vintage’ seems to be attractive, I recommend...
Hoppity Hop (solves all of the above issues) for only $6/each. And for those more serious audiophile types, $7 affords the ornate Hoppity Horse (with realistic horse-head). Get those cable way off the ground!

Very affordable, and certainly less expensive than my wife. But how will they affect room acoustics?

My room is trimmed with 4x1 Pine base board with sculpted vertical pieces of pine fixed to it every 4ft. I’ve 4 runs of Karma SS cable stacked nicely on top of the baseboard tucked behind the vertical pieces. Other than looking great it’s orderly and vacuuming is a breeze. Of course there is no other sane reason to suspend your cable…. Right ?? 🤪

Cheers 

Real classy.

I have the porcelain type $25 each and do the job done deal !

@lrlacosse Do your own research & make your own choices 

Fwiw- I’ll mess around with just about anything as long as I don’t have to take big loss on it. I played with ethernet switches and thought it was complete BS. Sent everything back, cost me nothing. These cable lifters ran me 60 bucks, these are give aways if I find them to be useless. Ppl take this hobby way too seriously, you gotta have fun with this stuff.

In fact, the ideal option is when the wires are held in the hands of 40 virgins ... (well, or slaves - if you are an Amazon owner)

Tinker toys or scrap lumber. Which given the price of lumber these days could be a small fortune. Ha.

I have mine lifted over 9 feet. Amazing. Underneath them is the basement of the house.

@invalid Interesting.  Thanks for posting the link. 

I use Martini glasses shaken but not stirred with 3 olives.

Snake oil all the way!

I have to give props to the marketing folks...check out this pitch...

cam use this to hold the tubes :D

https://smile.amazon.com/Drawing-Manikin-Articulated-Mannequin-Flexible/dp/B0783NSNNW/ref=sr_1_2

OMG, I found a really cheap cable lifter, but it does have a few cons, however, it is kids approved! 

https://smile.amazon.com/Pieces-Unfinished-Students-Activities-Woodworking/dp/B094NPTZJG/ref=sr_1_97_sspa

When you consider cable lifters, also consider the cables INSIDE your speakers as they're constantly being tortured by their proximity to the drivers, about which absolutely nobody cares. Nobody. Regardless of some theories (such as they are) about the effect a carpet could have on the speaker wires (!), vibration (from what is possibly due to music reproduction gear in the room) is carried through the air to everything in the room anyway regardless of the presence of tiny lifters, strings to the ceiling, or any other silly solution to a non existent problem. 

Necessity is the mother of inventions?  

If this is a problem maybe you should question the insulation on the wires. 

I like the aesthetic of nice lifters, I do not believe they improve sounds quality however. Whenever I have some left over cash I plan on buy these:

https://www.in-akustik.de/en/cables-and-accessories/speaker-cable/accessories/reference-cable-base-00719223-ls/?no_cache=1&cHash=1d813cb6a390734f1a1fd2630eeb980e

I am not sure glass is optimal??
If one likes the idea low dielectric material not slowing down the elective field, then something a lower dielectric constant than glass would be better.

But just try some glasses as well as some plastic cups… 

For those that think this is HOKUM, take a brand new fully charged Car battery and set it on a concrete floor overnight and tell me how well that works out for you.

On the other hand, I am glad to see the numerous free-thinking minds chiming in here with their DIY projects. Most Audiophile upgrades offer such small advantages and the expense you pay for any one of them can be exorbitant, but with a little big or mental exercise, you can at least make sure your system has the best advantage with a minimal cost.
I will again suggest either glass (#1) or Ceramic (#2) as choices for lifters as glass is the least reactive. The only thing I am not sure of is whether the amount of lead in the glass makes a difference. I would think Low Lead to be the best but I have been proven wrong before and this opinion is made with Little thought on the subject. YES, ALL GLASS has some lead in it.

 "Do your own research & make your own choices"  😒

What is this forum for if not to ask questions like I did??

Hi Folks no not listen to that car battery myth... utter Nonsense !! Someone needs a little help with his thinking in the general electric field. Very funny stuff stupidity aside, Plastic, glass, leaded crystal oh can't have that... Cement floors what BS.  

@invalid that article was fantastic. Thanks for the read. 

I have a revealing system  and I report no difference at all with cable lifters.  None.  Nada.  Zip.

I like using lifters as it makes detailing the floors in my listening room easier well my maid said it helps. 
 

Mine are 2x2x2 wooden cubes. Yes, they do make a difference "in my system". Yes, the difference is subtle. I reached out to GR Research before I made these. I was told the lifters should not hold a static charge, and that wood was a good choice.

@macg19 well the marketing must work as I look at your system we very short speaker cables (yes short runs are better) and it keeps them off the ground. Also notice a slight lift to your Raven RCA cable to your REL subwoofers. Why you are not using Speakon cables?

Not saying lifts give better sound and it is quite evident where @1971gto455ho opinions lie as he is vocal on the subject. 
 

Like my maid said the lifers make it nice when detailing the floor.

68 Z28 rule. 

@juanmanuelfangioii I hang all the interconnects and speaker cables with zip ties from the top of the cabinet and run power on the floor simply to separate signal from power. as much as possible. No idea if this makes a difference it just made sense to me. 

The Raven amp has an rca stereo sub-out so I use that rather than the speakon cable connected to the Raven speaker binding posts. (Raven suggested this and I tried it both ways and like the rca connection better and they gave me the option of returning the RCA cables if I preferred speakon) 

Using thick glass candle wick holders, keeps cables 1" off the floor, has wedges in them so the cable lays in perfectly (using Kimber 12TC). Purchased at IKEA for 47 cents each, total investment for my systems was under $10. 

+1 @wolf_garcia 

@macg19 cool I get it. I use lifters for the dust bunnies. 
 

I use both the RCA and Speakon depending on the IA being used.

Did get these from Signal Cable and really like them, BTW you have a nice system.

http://signalcable.com/relspeakon.html

@juanmanuelfangioii There are certainly many good reasons for good cable management. Mine isn't perfect and I'll clean it up a bit more when I'm so inclined.

What is IA?

I was considering Signal cable as well for the Speakon upgrade until I decided to go the RCA route. Signal makes great stuff and RELs price for their premium speakon cable is just silly.

Appreciate the compliment, thank you! 

For those that think this is HOKUM, take a brand new fully charged Car battery and set it on a concrete floor overnight and tell me how well that works out for you.

On the other hand, I am glad to see the numerous free-thinking minds chiming in here with their DIY projects.

Free thinking?

Most Audiophile upgrades offer such small advantages and the expense you pay for any one of them can be exorbitant, but with a little big or mental exercise, you can at least make sure your system has the best advantage with a minimal cost.
I will again suggest either glass (#1) or Ceramic (#2) as choices for lifters as glass is the least reactive.

What is the definition of reactive?
Chemically, direlectic constant?
what is it, and what are the numbers?

The only thing I am not sure of is whether the amount of lead in the glass makes a difference. I would think Low Lead to be the best but I have been proven wrong before and this opinion is made with Little thought on the subject. YES, ALL GLASS has some lead in it.

This is sounding like an alchemy lesson, or bent over a cauldron?

ok... I'll restrain myself here except to say

LOL