Tiny bridges everywhere, but why?
Nope, you don’t need to fork money for fancy ‘audiophile’ cable elevators. Cardas makes inexpensive cable lifters, http://www.cardas.com/multi_blocks.php But before you spend any money, try lifting your cables off the carpet by using styrofoam cups and see if you hear any audible improvements :-) |
Take a loot at my system https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367 This system is tweaked to the nine's. Every single one makes a difference, some big some small but it all adds together. Take away the tweaks and this is just another average system. For every tweak you see there are more hidden from view. Also for every tweak you see there are three or four more that were tried and either failed or were upgraded. What you see here is the best of the best. Look close, every single wire is elevated up off the floor. There is a specific product called Cable Elevators that 30 years ago was the first to be really good at this. More recently the last several years have seen more audiophiles and manufacturers catch on. Yeah, 30 years and only now.... that is how slow most are to catch on. Happens with everything. Stick around long enough you will see. Cable elevators is also a good generic term for anything that gets em up off the floor. The original Cable Elevators are really ceramic insulators made for telephone poles and power wires. Generic ceramic insulators can be found on eBay, they are all virtually the same in terms of performance so search out the deals. Look close, you will see different ones in my system. The big ones under speaker cables are Cable Elevators, all the rest are generic ceramic insulators. As for how they work, they all work on a combination of vibration control and reducing static electricity and dielectric effects. I know it is these three things from having tried many different approaches over the years and knowing what works better and what doesn't. As far as how well they work, read the comments on my system page. I have demo'd mine and everyone is surprised, the effect is not subtle. Mine however are off the charts tweaked. The ceramic insulators have a thin coat of TC, and the cables are all supported on rubber bands. Remember, vibration control. The best vibration control is isolation, the best of which is by springs. Rubber bands are a cheap effective substitute for springs. You just have to play around a bit to find the right thickness and tension to support each cable so it is free to bounce. These are under power cords and interconnects too. Keep in mind the main function is to elevate, and isolate. The only one I know of that uses anything like my suspension system is AudioQuest, and even then not really it uses fishing line which is too tight to isolate. But there are elevators like it that can be tweaked to be good like mine, once you get the hang of what you are doing and why. |
@lalitk Thank you. I will experiment with various household items. Ceramic coffee cups should do for this. @millercarbon Very impressive. Thank you for the extensive explanation and years to get to where you are. Congratulations. Funny, I thought you had a Jacob’s Ladder until another pic showed it was merely a floor lamp. :) I wonder if some day you will admit that the lava lamp is the true secret sauce. So far I’ve learned they are called elevators and they will make a difference. I am close to the point of experimenting with these. I have a full room treatment order on the way from GIK. My hope is that a treated room will best allow me to hear the subtle and not so subtle affects of my tweaks. This $tuff is $o much fun! |
@lowrider57 I am nearly tapped-out for the year in terms of funds for big tweaks like cabling, for example. I am a month or less away from committing to a steaming / dac solution and the room treatments were not cheap. That said, I can only afford to play around with inexpensive tweaks like elevators and anything else people may suggest like perhaps that liquid you can paint onto the ends of cables? I’m up for anything but started here because I’ve seen all kinds of elevators used in nearly every system photo, most of which appear to be wood. My guess is that this could be done on the cheap and suggestions are streaming in, with thanks. |
I understand and it can be done on the cheap. I wasn't referring to expensive tweaks like IC's and speaker cables. More like component isolation (many cheap options) and improving your power delivery. Research AC receptacles and there are many excellent low-cost power cables available for audition. These are tweaks that will provide a great return in performance. Consider these tweaks after you get your streaming and DAC squared away. |
@izjjzi, Great move with GIK panels! My advice, pace yourself; keep your focus on things you’re already committed to. A streaming/DAC setup will not sound its best out of the box. There are few things you must do to isolate ‘noise’ between your router and DAC/streamer. Read up on some of the recent threads on network switches and Ethernet noise filtering devices. |
@lowrider57 Exactly what I was hoping to learn. Thank you. @onhwy61 LOL... I know. Baby steps. I am far from final setup. I have to paint the room, put up the treatments, etc. Asking questions now so I can get to the end result of listening. I am also home auditioning steamers / DACs, so swapping is a constant thing. @lalitk Thank you. In hindsight I wish I had treated the room before AB'ing pieces. A well established echo needs to get squashed asap as most tracks sound like I'm in a great hall with high frequency reverb... not pleasant! I only have a 1m ethernet (Merging) cable from the router in my photo. Do I really need something for it? |
Izjjzi, Careful with cable riser recommendations, their effects are limited at best. Tried it with little to no results. Be careful with certain individuals that will get you charging down deep, dark rabbit holes. Just another way to spend a lot of money that could benefit you in a different direction. IMHO |
@izjjzi, Please read up on posts in following threads, this will give some perspective on why it is important to isolate / eliminate noise in your home network. https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/pimping-your-router https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/streaming-sound-quality-want-the-very-best-sound-quality-netw... https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/network-switches |
+1 what Millercarbon said. I use the old electrical insulators as elevators. You have some good components… once you did the big stuff… the perfect time to do the smaller stuff. Ultimately it is what can add up to turning a good system into great system. Isolation works everywhere. While this is not tiny cost…. If you don’t have a direct line (or better yet, two, consider that. You can get a sizable boost in performance there. |
Wait! If this is your “first complete system” then wait. Wait until you have lived with your system as is and first develop a solid understanding and appreciation of its sound. Fine tune speaker placement, make sure all plugs and jacks are very clean, do as Ohnwy61 suggests and live with that sound for some time. THEN experiment with “smaller tweaks”. You’ll then be able to appreciate the possible benefits far better. |
The only Jacob's Ladder I know is the Tim Robbins movie. Had to go look it up and, holy cow! That is the LAST thing I would put in my listening room! I mean it looks cool and all, and there are people I would for damn sure love to scare the Dicken's out of with it, but Lord man can you imagine the EMI!?!?!! Crikey!!! |
Since you say you're tapped out for costly additions at the moment and before you install your room treatments you should learn and run a program called REW. It's free but a calibrated microphone will run about $100. Once you get an idea of how your room interacts with your system you will have a better understanding of where the room treatments will be most effective. If you want real improvements that's where I would put my energy for now, after that if you enjoy playing with these tweaks most of them don't cause any real harm but some can get expensive with no benefit. |
$100 will buy 3 sets of Nobsound springs. Each set will support a component of up to around 100lbs. Since most are way less than that you actually get springs enough to do 5 or 6 components. It takes a little experimentation to get the spring loading just right, and making extra pods is a bit of entry level DIY, but totally worth it as you then have the tweak of the century. |
For Halloween I'll set up the Jacob's ladder which is 120v -15 kV at 250VA. An old lighting transformer. Fun stuff. As far as LV insulators go I dig the old glass style Those ceramics cut like a razor blade if broken or cracked, far worse than glass. Not sure I get why there's a need to isolate/elevate 2 conductor LV cables with a shield wrap. What exactly would one be coupling to if left on the floor that negatively affects sound quality? |
@onhwy61 I am also guilty of the jumbled mess of cables in my system. Every cord or cable has a purpose, so how do you arrange things nice and neat when you have something like 30 cables running every which direction? Especially when the space you can allot to your audio system is limited? High end audio tends to have MORE separate pieces of equipment compared to lower level systems, and each thing requires cabling to connect it. |
They are meant to avoid vibrations in the cables. There’s no scientific proof or explanation though that mechanical vibrations have any influence on the transfer of electrical signals. And by the way ... a length of cable that hangs between two spacers has an ’Eigen frequency’, like a guitar string, on which it will oscillate, which actually makes vibrations worse. But there are people who claim they hear an improvement in sound, and if they do, then that’s wonderful. If you want to lift your cables from the floor, kitchen sponges work fine as a spring / damper combination. They set you back about $1,-. You can also opt for the ’official’ floor spacers, at prices of $10 or even $100 a piece, but you only need those if you like their looks better. |
The floor of my listening room is concrete and it is underground, and my house is in the middle of a hundred acres in rural Michigan. I have no detectable noise from anywhere in the room or anywhere, including the AC power lines into the house. Zero noise anywhere, nothing measurable even from the components that make up my system. Has this hobby taken a turn towards the dark side? What about listening to, and loving music? Or is that just an afterthought on this forum? |
The OP has an interesting query here. Can't say I've ever seen or heard of elevated audio cables before. Wire management is handled using cable trays. Your local utility uses miles of cable (and cable trays or underground conduit) in every substation for SCADA control and other sensitive switching control. The electrons know where to go... I'd be more concerned about external EMF than cable vibration at miniscule voltage potential. |
Try these Rebar rebar elevator chairs, black or red, 2 or 3 inch heights, hold almost any cable( even my Cerious snakes), 40 per crate, enough to even supply your neighbors. $31. https://www.homedepot.com/p/Grip-Rite-2-in-PROLOK-Rebar-and-Mesh-Chair-GRPROLK42B/204768994 |
My listening room is carpeted, so I was able to cut and notch some pieces of cardboard to test the idea of cable lifters. Sure enough, they made a nice improvement, and I ended up getting a set of Audiquest Fog Lifters, which work great for me. https://www.audioquest.com/accessories/audio-enhancements/fog-lifters I like the way they make minimal contact with the cables. Also, the giant spider look has grown on me, but you, or others in your household, might disagree😉 Another related area you might want to delve into, if you haven’t already, is vibration control. I have found the solutions from Herbie’s Audio Lab work very well, and they are reasonably priced (at least in the context of this hobby). Putting Tenderfeet under your components is a good place to start. https://herbiesaudiolab.com |
Ugh, the lifting cable thing yet again...its a bunch of bull, it will do nothing to improve sound. Some here are dillusional. Also, most people that want to survive a marriage are not going to have an erector set of cabling all over the freakin living room! Most normal people have the cable along baseboards and under entertainment centers or stereo cabinets etc... |
I don’t know the technical terms used for elevating your cables from the floor but it was explained like this to me: the cable itself has an energy field surrounding the cable caused by the energy flowing through the cable Anything that interrupts that flow of electric field surrounding the cable such as floors takes away from the capability of the cable As soon as I put these https://www.musicdirect.com/vibration-control/cable-elevators-cable-supports under my speaker cables, a top end frequency sparkle was there which was not before. More clarity would be my best description. I previously had styrofoam cups under my cables but was advised they produced a dielectric charge and would not work as good as the ceramic elevators above. Try it and you will hear what I’m explaining Good Luck Willy-T |
@izjjzi Google it, seek various sources of information. Give more weight for reviewers with many comparative experience keeping in mind the ability of their audio chain for transparency. This forum has many who assume “it’s wrong till proven right”, “my experience means universal truth”, “my reasoning (which is usually an opinion) is universal truth”. People have different audio chains, room modes, hearing acuity, etc. Like most men who has an inflated sense of their automobile driving skills, my “I’d bet big $$$$” guess is that most audiophiles believe their hearing is at least above average and likely inflated beyond. A few here project on others what they can or cannot hear- makes no sense one claiming what others “perceive” - seems like a bit of arrogance. Often empirical evidence is ignored/belittled, and the fact that the more $ outlay the more one tends to be more scrupulous (making sure they get their money’s worth). Find out for yourself. It’s best not to look at things black or white but as probabilities. If most reviews say one thing, then “chances are” you’ll experience the same in your own system while keeping in mind their different audio chains, room modes, hearing acuity, etc is different than yours. Look at many sources to try to get a good sample size before drawing your own conclusions. Nothing is guaranteed. Also, research the best way to run audiophile cables. Coiling and running them in parallel degrades the signal/sound. Perhaps Googling “Furutech cable lifter reviews” a good place to start. Maybe you’ll find the explanations you’re looking for then try to replicate the some of the benefits on the cheap. It may be a good idea not to use materials that easily retain static electricity which seems bad next to cabling. |
I miss Mythbusters! Can you imagine a HiFi YouTube channel that puts things like elevators to the test? A Mythbusters for HiFi. I love this forum. I fully expected to hear from all sides. The advocates, the conspiracy theorists and possible folks with ties to companies that make these things. It’s fun. We have to remember the common denominator - we spend time here because we love music. We all appreciate whatever it is that results in the best SQ for us. I had a three hour AB session last night that compared the Merging+NADAC, Meitner MA3 and Acuphase DC-37. To complicate things we tested the new Canor Audio AI 1.10 integrated. Off topic here, but this system drives new Focal Scala Utopia and Dynaudio Confidence 60s. I was very fortunate to be included last night. What you do not see in this system are cables northing of a few hundred dollars, nor do you see elevators or anything "isolation". I was blown away by the sound and it’s difficult to imagine it getting much better. If anyone is interested I will recap last night’s results, but spoiler alert - the Canor may be the most analogue sounding ouput regardless of source I’ve heard to date. I also learned some critical things that really surprised me that have nothing to do with a particular piece, but rather positioning and the overall shocking synergy you can achieve with good speakers as your base and mid-to low-fi components. So many have posted that I do not have time right now to reply to each, but thank you! Also appreciate a dose of humor. Life is too short to not laugh. My position after all of this input is to pause until my room treatments are up. I’m down because the shipping date from GIK is 6 December. Everyone is so backed-up. Our poor country... So by mid-December I should have a streaming / dac plugged in and will be ready for elevator and other isolation testing. Winter, whiskey and this hobby. Going to be fun! |
I looked at the pictures of your setup. You have very nice gear, but I see zero room treatment in your photos. I wouldn’t spend a single penny on cable elevators, or any tweak of that sort, until my room acoustics were completely figured out. The gear you currently have is already being severely limited by the acoustics of an untreated space. A thousand dollars of used gear in a well-treated room would yield you much better results, in my opinion. edit: I just saw your comment that said you’re waiting on a shipment for room treatment. I think that will be the upgrade that will make you the happiest of all! |
OP. The good thing I see in your room is carpet, wall to wall, which is good. Would you/have you tried your system on the long wall? Short wall can be fine but it looks like your speakers are a bit to close to the side walls. Usual (but not limited to) distance from side wall is 3 1/2 feet to 4 feet. General ill effects are midrange colorations. The recommendations for room treatments are a very good idea also. |
@mr_m It's berber with a carpet pad followed by concrete. I have been asked by others about the long wall as well, but it would end the goals I have for the room, which is having up to four people sit and listen with a little leg room. That said, the GIK engineer has me moving the Sopras much further into the room and away from the walls. I'm eager to try it, but mostly from last night's AB session where I was seated maybe 4? 5? feet max from the front line of Utopias and Confidence 60s, which BLEW MY MIND. I never thought to be so close to large speakers. My epiphany was the resulting 3D imaging, stage and instrument separation. Never fully understood these adjectives until last night. Two and a half hours to go before I can wrap up the work I'm doing from home so I can go play. :) |
Hello izjjzi. Cable supports are a great way to make money! Unless you're spending $10k per component, forget it. Try putting cardboard wedges under you speaker cables and be sure your health insurance is paid up. Tripping hazard! If the wedges improve things, leave them there! Some guys are selling a four inch block of wood for $35 bucks a pop! P.T. Barnum was right! Perhaps I went into the wrong business. Hmmmmm. |
There is the odd blow hard out there that would have you believe you can make a $10,000 system sound like $30,000 with gum,tape, haywire, and a endless list of crap. Doesn’t work that way. Put balanced components in a well treated room and enjoy. Save the dreaming for equipment up grades not Fantasy and crappy idea’s. |
DJones says..‘I wouldn’t spend much money or time fooling with cable lifters but it does make things look a bit neater. They do absolutely nothing to your sound so no need to worry they might cause a deleterious effect.’ Ordinarily true. I would say that most out there have no impact. But the Synergistic Research Cable Risers not only change the sound, they do so dramatically. The effect is very pronounced with the Foundation Series speaker cables but is also immediately apparent with other cables brands and types. These beautifully crafted (and expensive) devices are unlike normal cable risers and imo are really more akin to the HFT resonators placed on aluminium not-so-tiny ‘bridges’. These risers are quite large. I’ve come to the conclusion that the HFT technology is responsible for what is going on because the effect is still there to one degree or another if the cables are removed off the risers but the risers are left in place around the speaker plain. The question is not whether they do or do not change the sound. It’s more a matter of IF you like the sound with them or without. I was astonished at first at how much they changed the sound, and it took a while getting used to this different presentation. Without, the sound is more ‘relaxed’ shall we say. Imagine if you will the image as normal is somewhat soft, diffuse and splayed out wide. You might say ‘my system doesn’t sound like that’ until you put the risers in and hear what they do. Putting the risers in place is akin to gathering all the sound and bringing it in toward center. The sound becomes a lot more focused and the imaging clearer. It is not in the least bit subtle I assure you. The sound is ‘taller’ and less diffuse. This effect can be very enticing at first, but over time can seem a little hard. I do not leave the risers in all the time as i sometimes like to relax more into a slighty diffuse sound. |
Cheap Cable Risers here: https://www.homedepot.ca/product/peak-products-plastic-1-1-2-inch-to-2-inch-rebar-chair-50-piece-/10... or something like this: https://www.betterair.ca/better-air-products/x-rebar-chair-series |
Are there meetings for audioholics? I'm ready to admit I have the disease... Woke-up today convinced I'm going to sell my gear and start over, but first I'm setting out to start hearing more speaker brands in the New England area. @high-amp - turn those x-rebar pieces sideways with a rubber band around them and I think we have a winner - seriously. @thosb - I heard that the sulfites on the cork can give your speakers a hangover. :) |
Ahh, you are in the early stages. Try this. Consider the system you have to be your reference system. So, instead of thinking of selling it all, think of it as a very long termed project to very slowly and carefully move to your ideal system. But first you have to determine what that is. Make it a long-termed project to listen to every really high end system you can. Consider how yours is different. But you want to find “the sound” you want. Then you can slowly swap one component (break-in, enjoy, save money), rinse, repeat. In the mean time read Robert Harley’s book on High End Audio, get a subscription to The Absolute Sound and Stereophile. This way you can manage the disease to slow it down and enjoy the process. tho\ |
