Cable Management Tips and Tricks

the basic cable management principle is that your cables are singing along with the music and that resonance will in essence become part of your noise floor, which obscures musical information and also can smear the textures and microdynamics. not all systems are equally affected, but none are immune. another secondary principle is that heavy stiff cables will pull down on your gear and affect the rack, footers, plugs and chassis. it’s good understand what the issue are. the great thing about cable management is that it can cost you almost zero dollars, it’s easy to find tools that are DIY. so it’s mostly just a bit of time and experimentation to find a bit more ’free’ performance. it might not make an audible difference, but it might be a nice boost. so you should go into it with low expectations and see where it takes you.

here is a cable management thread i just started on another forum that might be helpful to understand the issues involved (read both pages to the end to see where i ended up);

https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/floating-speaker-cables-on-the-cheap.33707/

my particular system is more affected by cable management since i use active isolation. which means that the isolation uses piezo electric sensors and actuators to isolate gear from resonance. heavy cables hanging off my gear will dampen the ability of the active to react to attenuate resonance.

if you use decoupling footers or racks for your gear then making sure your cables don’t adversely affect your decoupling can be significant.

@ brylandgoodman ...
How much impact one cable on another. depend on the geometry of the cables being used. 

Convectional cable geometries i.e. 2 or 3 wires in parallel, are the worst
and having them run in parallel should be avoided

Advanced cables geometries like those from In-Akustic and Nordost are less prone to cable placement issues

I have held one of my turntable cables next to an active power cable in my clenched fist and experienced very little hum with the system turned up to full volume (but not playing)

The other posters are spot on
- Coils should be avoided
- if anything a figure 8 approach is much better than a coil
- keeping cables apart and crossing at as close to 90 degrees is best

Shielding a cable may have some benefit, but it impacts the sound - I prefer unshielded cables 

Regards - Steve

Here’s another thread. Ideally, no cables should be coiled, running parallel or touching. Signal cables and power cables definitely should be carefully spaced apart. The rats nest behind the rack should look like an intentionally arranged 3-D wireframe

"Cable management"?? That’s that point in time when you got maybe the best system you have ever had. Then manage to read the Cable tab on the Agon site & realize, you probably outta just try one. 30 day return so...what’s the harm? So you go to the site and manage to order. But 1st, you think about it being snake oil and how they made no difference. But then you think......((stay tuned for tomorrow’s installment where we look at WTH???))




Actually I’ve been too lazy and this almost hit a nerve Good thread.

I let the cables fall where they may and when they always do when they meet, try to make sure they cross at right angles. It helps to use some cut down piece of foam insulation that's used in electrical pipe conduits that you can get at any hardware store.

Oh, and I keep by cables up off the floor using cheap measures. Nothing fancy is needed.

All the best,
Nonoise