I’ve not had a cable on the floor since 1990, when Enid Lumley of TAS, espoused the idea that something to do with "skin effect" caused cables lying directly on the floor to sound blurrier.
What the hell, thought I. I got up immediately and poised the cables on the edges of hardback books (thick ones, like War and Peace) and much to my surprise, since I had a Versa Dynamics, WATT/Puppies and Jadis and Goldmund electronics, heard the difference immediately. (I also had had two dedicated circuits installed earlier, and a Tice, so I could trust my ears).
I have no idea why, but keeping interconnects apart from each other - and from power cords - eliminates a sort of blur to the sound that makes inter-transient silences between notes noticeably better. And really, it costs nothing to try it out with hardback books either stood up with the books wide open, so that the cables aren’t touching a solid block of the book. I tie my interconnects with string. I even do tests for friends who say, "Oh, you have golden ears (right!). I won’t hear it." I just instruct them to listen to a singer’s voice (one they like, because it holds their interest. The other night it was Linda Ronstadt) and they hear it instantly.
I have Shunyata Dark Cable Elevators, too: several iterations of them and they do work. But you could HEAR the effect by using CD covers, hardback books (paperbacks seem to fall over too easily) or anything else where you have the cable just on the EDGE of whatever you’re draping it over. Don’t lay it across the entire surface of anything: that’s almost as bad as having it on the floor. It seem that the more it hangs in free air, the purer the sound. I do the same with power cords, although I have tube traps all around the room, and simply sick the power cords between two stacked tube traps.
EVERYTHING makes a difference.
And turn off your microwaves, dedicated circuits or not. Must be something in the microwave circuitry, but I’ve tested it in several friends’ homes with completely different equipment, and they have dedicated circuits, too. You’ll hear it in the 3-5k range most easily (triangles and their overtones, or glockenspiels).
Crazy hobby, but it need not cost a fortune. The room is the most important factor. The other night a new buddy, who’d never heard my system before, moved a tube trap. I just about blew my stack (silently) as I had said 3 times, "Don’t touch ANYTHING." And last night, hearing Ronstadt, I moved the trap he touched, and experienced annoyance: with tube traps, the slightest move of the cylinder (either rotating it or moving it down the wall in fractions of an inch) can cause you to lose extremely subtle improvements, such as hearing the "d" on "kicked" or even the "k". So do keeping the interconnects separated!
