Keeping cables off the floor

I just "cleared" a few cables last night that had gone off track and were touching walls and the improvement in clarity was very noticeable as a CD was playing during this process. I wonder if it also has something to do with the length and make of the speaker cables? I am using Kimber 4VS in very long 17' runs. The Kimber has tons of fine strands in its makeup (8 enclosed wires per cable and each wire itself is multi stranded). This design is supposed to be good for longer runs, but is it also more inclined to be effected by interference as well? I do not own a pair of golden ears and yet the change in sound is not subtle.

OK, I'm going to have to give this a try. Due to necessary equipment placement, things aren;t as tidy as they should be and the look has always bothered me.

What I'm thinking of is getting a 2x4, cutting in a groove on the top length, then slicing it into individual pieces. Any opinions relative to the effectiveness of my construction project? I'm planning on painting them, but maybe there is some kind of more inert, spray on material.

Thoughts? Thanks in advance.

Jim: I am just guessing, but soft wood vibrates a lot. Other than clearing my cables from the carpet fiber I also find that the sound gets muted when they touch the walls as well and assume that they must be picking up vibration received and then sent by the wall to the cable. One specialty product for this purpose is made out of ceramic which is very dense. However just keeping the cable off of the carpet fiber does improve the sound in my system. Curiously enough two small sections that come into brief contact with a 100% cotten rug seem to make no difference that I can hear. The opposite is true of the carpet which is made of manmade fibers. Probably not the best material (soft wood), but it should still improve the sound I would think. There are a lot of things that I could still do to improve the sound of my system, but I am not willing to totally screw up my living room (for other uses) to achieve these improvement and am usually happy with any gain that I get.

Makes sense, Dekay. I wonder if a can get a stip of acrylic in a 2x4 shape and do the same thing. I just happen to have a source for acrylic fabrication here in L.A. that I'll drop by -- haven't been there in quite a while. I would think that this will do the trick. Or, maybe "dip" and coat the wood blocks in acrylic. Another option with the wood "slices" might be giving it a several of coats of "whatever" and lining the groove where the cable sits with a strip of sorbothane or similar (but cheaper) material. An engineer I am not. This is an area where my ideas can get scary, or at least my more techincally oriented friends tell me so.

A totally weird idea that I dropped on general principal was to take those funky looking, third world napkin rings -- the ones in the shapes of birds, fish and animals (picked up a bunch on Bali), run the speaker calels through them and insulate the cables (since the holes are bigger than my cables) with rubber bushings (can get these in any size from auto suppliers) or super dense foam. Just too weird, even by my liberal standards. I did think it would be a unique look and maybe have a better WAF, though.

I like the napkin ring idea myself. I wonder if you could find a cheap heavy coordinating base to glue to the bottom of each one (like little blocks or flat rounds of trophy marble or ceramic) and skip lining the ring itself as they should be elevated enough off the floor by the base. I live in LA as well and used to order (in the 70's and early 80's) from a place called Bemak Plasics. They used to be on Santa Monica Blvd. but either moved or went under. I think that are wifes must know each other. I mentioned placing architecheral balls in the uppermost corners of the living room and dining area (to diffuse low frequencies) and my wife has been bugging me to complete the project ever since. She wants to paint them different colors. She has always wanted crown molding, which I refuse to put up with a cottage cheese ceiling and feels that the balls would trim the room in a way. I have not gotten around to researching what material they should be made of, which is the holdup.