Those look nice, and symbolic old the bread shelled out for the cables. 😃 |
Some cable risers I made many moons ago from bowl blanks. Just modified them to accommodate the Fideliums. Have lead in the bottom for more stability. These really help to keep your routing neat and tidy. I have no need to run power cables through these to keep them off the floor as well with this new set-up.
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As cables get shorter and shorter, their effect upon the system reduces linearly. Hence I would be more likely to use two mono block or two stereo amp servicing the bi-wire inputs behind each speaker and a short zip cord, than spending 2500 on a cable.
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I tell my kids to experiment and evaluate. You should do the same. Grain of salt with some of the AG folks that tell you otherwise. Do your own due diligence. For me after many years, good conductors, good connectors (or no connectors), secure connections, provide the best listening experiences. That is easily achievable much much less than $2500.
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@sokogear Over the decades I’ve played at the "audiophile" game, my journey has become much more about the music I’ve learned a lot. One big lesson which I recently had to relearn is that often newer is not better. Different perhaps but not better. Of course, there are too many variables in the mix but I do feel that a modicum of what’s generally referred to as "common sense," and at least one eye on the wallet, is a very good approach. I once listened to a system in which the speaker cables alone cost more than an economy car. Speakers were roughly $40K. Electronics cost about the same, not including interconnects. Yes, It was quite impressive. But after an increasingly- tiring 90-minute listening session it was clear to me, that in this case "too much was really much too much." FWIW, I’ve gotten rather good results with some DIY speaker wires including various gauges of magnet wire. And yes, I can hear differences. One final thought: wires or "cables" yield THE highest margin of profit to any other audio component as far as I know. And to open another controversial topic, many expensive wires or if you prefer "cables" come from China. One can only imagine how cheap they are to the purveyors of boutique speaker "cables" before they’re repackaged and resold for a serious *hitpile of dough. Is that factoid relevant? You guys tell me. Have at it lads..... Over and out. |
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Another vote for the Cable Company. I've found Steven great to work with-- incredibly patient, never pushy. I only buy what I can demo at home and it doesn't make sense to order 5 cables from 5 companies when I can order all 5 from The Cable Company AND get used/burned in cables to boot. My 2 cents... |
You know what this reminds me of? Remember going to the mall as a 10 year old kid in the 70s let’s say, that’s my generation and picking out new sneakers? Cell the sales person puts the shoe on your foot and then they always pushed on your big toe to make sure you had enough room. Then you put the other shoe want to make sure that your feet were the same size and that everything fit properly. At that point I can remember leaving the store and running around the mall and being amazed at how much faster I could run in the new shoes. I got to believe that some of that comes back to life as an adult when you spend a nice chunk of change on a set of good looking cables. It makes everything better, faster, more detail, warmer, larger soundstage you name it it makes it better. |
Very hard to try out diff cables. rent a cable path is expensive and u cant really do many at a time. Getting warmed up cables also problematic. My friends dont really have high end cables and more likely are not into all this audiophile stuf, and i dont want to make this a bonding hobby. so i, we, rely on reviews, hi end dealers and forums to help guide us. And then we may make a move and buy a cable with eloquent marketing prose, accept the science, and absorb glorius anecdotal comments. And then wait several hundred hours for it to ‘breakin’. And live with it like a new child, we will love it. |
Why raising cables off the floor helps is like a lot of things due to more than just one thing. Vibration, static electricity, and dielectric material are all factors. Combine this with people having different systems and different listening abilities if you want to make sense of what is going on. Because for sure and for certain it works, just read the comments from people on my system page. https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367 This is one of my favorite demos to do because it is quick and easy to do, and the results are always dramatic. No one ever fails to hear the difference. The last time I did it the guy said, "I wish you hadn’t done that!" He was really getting into the music and when the elevators came out it was a total let down. In no particular order, dielectric is a factor. Dielectric is the insulator around the wire. This material never is perfect. Signal peaks energize the dielectric, which then bleeds this energy back into the wire over time thus smearing or blurring detail. This definitely is a factor because I have tested it by putting different materials around the cables. Carpet, wood, concrete all have different dielectric properties. Obviously moving a cable away from these the same amount of inches will have a different effect with wood than carpet than concrete, tile, etc. Static electricity is a factor. Anyone can demonstrate this for themselves, simply get some Static Guard laundry spray and waft it over your cables. That is all it does, eliminate static charges, and this cleans up the sound. Since static charges migrate along surfaces and the floor, be it carpet or whatever is a surface, there you go. Vibration control is definitely a factor. Not only because the floor vibrates, but try putting your hand on a speaker cable some time while playing music with good bass content. Depending on your cable type and geometry this can be pretty dramatic. Maybe not enough to feel in all cases. But if you cannot feel it that does not mean it is not happening, more likely it is but just too little to feel. My Townshend F1 for example are supposed to be sealed in something for vibration control and I can’t feel them like I could my old Synergistic CTS. Both however responded very well to vibration control. I know it was vibration control and not anything else because my rubber band mod was used on the same Cable Elevators, so maintained the same material and the same height above the floor. When you remove all the other variables leaving only one then you know what you are hearing is due to only that one. Which is what I did. With all this stuff. So this is not guess, not conjecture, but tested and demonstrated. Not just on me either but lots of people. Any doubters, say again, read the system comments! |
I would think that real wood with have no impact worth noting, except for the vibrations that some say can have an effect. I've seen lots of photos of reviewers set ups where it's about 50/50 as to whether they're off a wooden floor or just lying on it. The reviewers who have them off their wooden floors claim to hear the difference. The others don't even mention it, kind of like here. This is going out on a limb but the thought of a layer of non organic clear coat on a wood floor (for that long lasting sheen and protection) could be a factor but you won't know until you try something. Like having a thin wire in a big tube, only a small part of the cable will be making contact with the floor so it probably doesn't matter. If I had wood floors, I'd still try it too see for myself, starting with something cheap and temporary. All the best, Nonoise |
@sokogear, Not all of the cable is 30" off the floor. I tried to depict the image of longer than needed cable drooping as I hung it, with sections of it at the 8" height off the floor. Not all of it is 30" off the floor. As the crow flies, one speaker is about 4' from my integrated and the other is about 2 1/2', while my SCs are about 8' in length. The thought of static electricity ran through my mind as well. It's only on the synthetic carpet in my apartment that I can build it up to the point where I'll shock myself, so it stands to reason it may have been interfering with the sound of the cable all this time, acting as an additional layer of unwanted dielectric. Who knows? All I care is that it sounds much more convincing. All the best, Nonoise |
Hey @nonoise Any idea what the reason is for needing to have cables 8" off the floor? The need to have them off the floor is due to vibration from the floor from the speakers, which need to be touching to affect the cables. Unless maybe with static electricity from carpets? I just have mine off the floor with little wood trim pieces attached to the back of my credenza or held up by shoeboxes behind it. Why 30" off the floor? |
Cable management is not a hoax and cable risers are not cosmetic, even though they could look strange or impressive to someone who is less involved with these things. Both could cost nothing to do but your spare time. Rising speaker cables off the floor had a positive effect on stereo imaging in my case. Three more power cables to go. |
Agree with raising the cables off the floor. I started out with short tea candle holders from Ikea. Real cheap and easy to lay cables on their scalloped edges. Next I tried some 6" 4x4s and was impressed with the improvement. I remember Pierre Sprey of Mapleshade saying to get them at least 8" off the floor so I went and got some of those 3M stick on hooks for one wall behind the speakers and strung up the extra length on them, about 30" off the floor. Not all of the cable is that high (one section is as close as 8" as it droops-the cables are about 2’ longer than I need). For the other side, I had to go with a short wire TP holder (25") with an extended handle (for that roll) to use to lay the cable on due to its proximity to the wall heater. As funny as it sounds, it’s not in the least funny in how it sounds. The clarity is so pronounced that solo voices with acoustic accompaniment sounds so eerily real as to beg disbelief. That goes for all around clarity as well on any recording. The only trade off is getting used to a somewhat lessened lower mid and bass performance. It seems that the smearing introduced by my synthetic carpet added some heft to the sound in the lower parts. To think that I’ve read of this many years ago (closer to decades) and didn’t take it all that seriously gives me pause. I always thought that my Marantz had that relaxed house sound but with everything I do to clean things up (power conditioning, footers, fuses, and now cable management) the more the sound is not relaxed at all, but just ever so slightly warm off center, but capable of lots of detail and depth. All the best, Nonoise |
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Saying proper cable management is crucial is making it sound complicated @jasonbourne52 it’s really not. Keep cables off the floor. Avoid having them touch each other, but if they must, make sure they intersect perpendicularly. Don’t let them loop around. Pretty simple. Violating any of these rules impacts the SQ from a purely physics standpoint by creating interference because of the magnetic fields created by any flowing current (or wire for that matter). You may or may not be able to hear it, and as you know, some people hear better than others (or listen better). |
In double blind testing that is poorly done, the small differences, the nuance found is harmed. harmed via the physical set up and the overall execution of the test. Of course, when I say that, the person reading it has to know how important all that is. To set up a test correctly it must contain the intelligence and the nuance that is required for the audio capable mind and intellect involved, to be able to perceive the nuance being tested for. That nuance must be able to emerge from the test unharmed and be capable of being heard. In other words -- Don’t attempt to count intact chicken eggs with a 10 pound sledgehammer. This also involves psychological bullying or disturbances of mental state via the test set up and coming from the direction of the people handling the test, creating the test, setting up the test, and so on. This is important as the mind is a self malleable shifting senses/concentration/scope/direction/range type device that has to center itself to the task at hand. One can’t do basic arithmetic while one’s arm is being sawn off with a blunt spoon while it’s being held over a raging fire. The mind, overall, prevents the capacity for nuance being discerned, as it takes over and tries to move the arm out of harm. On the more subtle level, we find that to train our children or anyone else for that matter, it is required to have the correct environment and to also fit the situation of learning into the type of scenario that works not for just all but to help the individual to understand, as their capacity to realize nuance, in learning, is key. We end up having to design learning systems for individuals. Environments and envelops, moods, shapes, spaces etc...this is why we hire tutors for our children or people so the individual tutor can work with how the individual learns and retains. to help them excel, when they may have failed, as the generalization at hand in the training/teaching norms, is not working for them. We don’t ask diamond cutters to do fine cuts in diamonds while being a passenger in the Baja 1000 Rally (or the Dakar Rally). This is going to be difficult for the person who is involved and is a ’detractor’ of such audio directions as ’cables make a difference’. This, as they are like a mental and physical blunt instrument, regarding understand the nuance tha this required in this entire situation.... We have to go back to the start and try and help them ’get it’. To back to long before or deeper into orignal extant nuance and help them understand..that they got stuck running down the road into this gauntlet that is narrowing in their own ignorance... to a fine over-extended point..that is attacking the audio world. The kind that rolls into your driveway crushing newborn kittens... when the task at hand ..is to come over... and be involved in accurately counting living newborn kittens. What’s wrong? they ask.... They kill and harm and can’t plan a simple test as they have no idea of the data or the tests meaning. they misconstrue even where to begin, in order to claw their own ignorance back... as they have no grip on the subject matter at hand. in the case of James Randi vs Micheal Fremer, Fremer went after all those small aspects that had to be correctly done, so that the test could go forward in a correct functional way. so the Randi foundation and whatnot kept allowing things to proceed in the right direction and then it was found that under such a correctly designed test, that Fremer could actually seriously discern to a pretty well 100% level, of the differences in cables, reliably, every damned time. Fremer was going to dunk the Randi foundation in its own projected effluent, and he was going to be collecting that million dollars. To add, the test was invalid statistically, as noted by more than one professional and accredited statistician and test regimen designer. you know.. the kind of people who design drug tests and whatnot for the tune of millions of dollars in medical studies, FDA approval, etc- what becomes drug approvals and so on. actual science. Those people noted that the Randi test was utterly ridiculous in it’s statistical reliability and correctness demands. They noted that the criteria needed to be beat, to collect the million dollars was out of line with reality. Way out of line. Where that... if anyone had used the Randi test criteria to prove the efficacy of a drug or compound, or any other scientific testing and validation scenario, nothing in this world would have ever been approved. Ever. Far too stringent for any form of reality in this world. So the entire thing appeared on paper, in execution and then, of course, in reality...that it was designed to make sure anything involved was a failure and that no one could ever get to the insane 100% correctness level in testing across enforced repetition. To force testing until failure. and then calling the intermittent failure from over stressing, the accumulation to eventual failure ...as THE outcome. Like testing a bridge or the like with more and more mass and stressing until it fails, and then calling the expected failure as the outcome of the test. Or using the bridge for 50 years and then when it fails calling it a failed bridge, an invalid bridge. That was part of the testing regimen as well. Over-testing to force outcome to failure and call it different than it actually was or is. The challenge and the debunking from the Randi foundation was going to remain intact forever, as the testing regimen was scientifically invalid and essentially rigged. This, as coming from world class statisticians who analyzed the ’million dollar challenge’ regimen presented. That the Randi foundation was akin to a debunking system or ’front’ ---and nothing more. Which makes it far far worse than neutral. Fremer was going to beat that system and beat the impossible 100% perfection mark...and walk away with the million dollars. The Randi faction backed down and contrived an excuse to walk away. When someone brings up Randi and the challenge, or anything haveing to do with double blind testing in this area of proofing....ie, high end audio.... as tied to the ’prove you hear a difference’ ignorance that is always presented...well... I realize I’m talking to someone with an agenda ...or they are severely misinformed about reality and the bits within it. |
@cleeds , Edgewood $2,500 cables are a scam. Period.Such silly nonsense. Were your claim true, you’d beat a path to a lawyer and a class action lawsuit and get rich beyond your wildest dreams. But, oddly, those who claim fraud, scam, and snakeoil here never pursue their claims, except here. Which prompts the question: Who’s promoting a scam? If only. Let’s not forget that no manufacturer, dealer, seller etc EVER promises ANY sonic improvement. THEY NEVER EVER DO. As @faintandfuzzy has already pointed out, "In double blind testing, it’s amazing to watch all of these supposed differences vanish." The key word being ’supposed’, or hinted/ implied/ inferred/ suggested if you prefer - but never actually stated. If any of them actually believed their cables were sonically superior do you think they would hesitate to shout it from the rooftops? Heck they would, they’d make Noel Lee look like a shy and retiring vicar! |
Well one specific thing I’ve read hear is 100 percent wrong,you don’t need to “live with them for a good long while” to hear a difference in speaker wire. After switching them out,you will hear a difference in 30 seconds of listening,period. After 5 minutes you will know if you like the difference! All the time spent after that will just confirm what you heard initially in the first few seconds. Sure,spending some time with the new cables is advisable,but you’ll know quite fast if it’ll work for you in your system. If you can’t hear a difference,or the difference isn’t to your liking,move on,hopefully you were able to borrow or rent or beg off a set from a friend. Don’t buy a set because they look good or your buddy has them,or they sounded wonderful in the store on their gear. And don’t expect to hear big improvements from cheap cables,it just doesn’t happen,or atleast very rarely. So if your poor or cheap,be happy with what you have, and go buy your kids dinner or diapers or whatever. Good luck,John |
They sound like $500 speaker cables. And they sound like $15,000 speaker cables, and sometimes they sound like $20 worth of zip cord from Home Depot. Above a few hundred dollars for say a 3 meter pair (longer runs are going to cost more) and it's just whatever differences you hear. Either way, no way to know without living with them for a good long while in your system. |
Anyone wants to hear what cables can do, come on over. In speaker cables I have a nice selection of 2 levels of Synergistic and a Townshend F1. Interconnects I have Jungson, Synergistic and Townshend F1 at price levels from a couple hundred to several thousand. In power cords you can hear Shunyata, Synergistic, and M101 Nova and Supernova. Anyone who thinks a power cord is not that big a deal the Supernova will rock your world. Anyone who does not think these things are equally as essential as any other component, if I remove all the Townshend F1, Nova and Supernova and replace them with lesser wire, you will be shocked how comparatively awful it sounds. Even though truth be told if all you heard was my system with those cheaper wires you would be impressed. But with the better wires you are stupefied. Spellbound. Freaking amazed. This stuff is for real. For anyone not to have got the message by now I really do have to wonder how serious you are. It is so unbelievably obvious. I mean even if your listening skills are near non-existent you would have to be way more oblivious than my wife, who is not all that interested in anything but Tchaikovsky, nevertheless she hears the difference without even going in the room. So frankly either you are an audiophile and get it, or you are a troll and never will. Either way, all the same, you are all welcome to come and listen. You will see. |
As one who can hear differences in interconnects, speaker cables and digital connections, let alone tube rolling...... OK, power cords not so much anymore after the Niagara install, ..... I probably don't have any links other than power cords that have not been shot out 8 to 10 times... tubes more than that. It is what it is.............. I hear differences in everything including taking a picture on or off the wall. |
Of course cables make a difference the signal or power passes through them. Whether your system can reveal the difference and you can hear it is what matters. The best ones, like the best components should be neutral and let the music come through, not emphasizing certain frequencies. One caution - they are the biggest markup of any product (not including hocus focus tweaks) possible as the cost to manufacture is much lower than any other product. The law of diminishing returns is quicker IMHO with cables than anything else. |
Hello, I have quite a bit of hifi components, amps, preamps, turntables, and many hi-end cables. I usually keep the cables I’ve purchased throughout the years in the event I need them in the future. Usually, the difference between a $200 cable and a $2,500 cable from the same manufacturer is that more attention is given to making the more expensive cable sounding better. Better usually means, more open, transparent but yet smooth, better bass and smoother highs, and usually more refined. But with some products, this is not always the case. I’ve found that my more expensive cables do sound better than my lower end cables. But the most important point, is not $$$ spent on a cable, its synergy regardless of price. |
edgewound $2,500 cables are a scam. Period.Such silly nonsense. Were your claim true, you’d beat a path to a lawyer and a class action lawsuit and get rich beyond your wildest dreams. But, oddly, those who claim fraud, scam, and snakeoil here never pursue their claims, except here. Which prompts the question: Who’s promoting a scam? |
@jumia To me its all sooo convuludedYes, it is, but it can be figured out with a bit of research. If you post your cable budget and/or your audio components, you’ll receive many suggestions that will help narrow your search. A good place to start understanding the science of audio cables, Google “iconoclast cables white paper” then click on a white paper link. Although no direct experience with “Silversmith Fidelium” speaker cables, from what I read it appears to be a rare audio bargain. Even though I already have $6k speaker cables, I might try a pair of the Fidelium. |
