Tiny bridges everywhere, but 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.

@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?

@djones51 I look forward to testing this. So far I've been super skeptical about everything and I have seen the truth every step of the way. This however, is a different realm of things "not plugged in". Isolation things I look forward to trying on for size. 

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!

@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. :)

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. :)