Lifters ForGetting Cables Off The Floor, Worth It Or Snake Oil

There was a kind young man on Audiogon a few years ago who was collecting and offering handsome sets of dark brown, fairly large but not obtrusive antique porcelain insulators for a reasonable price. I gladly bought two sets from him to keep my long new (to me) bi-wired flat-but-fat speaker cables off of the carpet-over-concrete slab in our living room. I have the same issue another member already mentioned: the left speaker is perhaps only three feet of cable length from our big Levinson amp, while the right speaker is probably twelve or so cable-feet away. While I will not claim the insulators vastly improved the sound, the upgraded cables made a positive difference in our enjoyment of music, and the insulators look good and functionally manage the coiled dual runs of excess cabling on the left side of the room, between our rack and the speaker. They make keeping the cables clean easier and help to keep them secured to our large full-range speakers by reducing the tug of the weighty bi-wired run. The insulators were a reasonable investment in our primary system, and I appreciated the care the seller took in selecting, matching and meticulously packing them for me. They were not expensive - perhaps $230 or so all in - and I'm glad to have them. I like to think they make a difference; however, as with all scientifically unproven tweaks, your mileage may differ, and if you consider their use to be an instance of "snake oil," I still respect your opinion.

Can it be snake oil if it's free ?

Hey, look on the bright side. Just be glad this thread is not about something really controversial like, say, the Peter Belt stuff. 😳

I made some with 2 inch thick leftover oak from a prior job. The benefit I was seeking was  to allow easier dusting and to relieve some of the strain on the connections from the weight of the cables. For those reasons it worked. As far as sound improvement goes I never thought of it in those terms and never noticed any past the cables own qualities. 

As a side, some of you IMHO should understand this "snake oil" some keep using to attack anything they may disagree with is not in the right context. The litigation of snake oil was in that the product had NO snake oil in it , the product actually DID work as claimed. Which is not the case in any of the naysayers beliefs that none of them work. 

I use a high-end integrated tube amp, not mono blocks so I need longer speaker cables... for those, I have 8 foot AntiCables which have a very thin insulation painted on. (I’d like shorter cables, but I am otherwise delighted with my setup.) The AntiCables sound great, on or off the wood floor. (There is a large oriental rug between the speakers and the listener, but not under the cables.) When I raise the cables (they are quite stiff) using only 3 or 4 re-purposed glass-insulators there is a slight but detectable improvement in the clarity of sound (or "blackness" in quiet). It is quite subtle, so I think the AntiCables are a winner for matching Avalon speakers with an Ayon tube amp. I have a great system and am pretty happy, so sometimes I use the glass risers but often not.

The logic behind this is pretty straight forward, the amount of insulation on wire is said to"smear" the sound. I believe that effect is less with the AntiCables to begin with (minimal insulation), and less on my wooden floor than on an otherwise carpeted floor. I understand that different materials affect this dialectic effect more or less. I read frequently that natural materials generally have an advantage over manmade ones, such as most wall-to-wall carpets. You can clue-in that plastics might present a problem just by the static charges that can develop under dry conditions.

A few years back, I bought a mess of old glass insulators that formerly were used on telephone poles to hold bare electric wires. EBay has several sellers, these things work well and they look uber cool versus special risers, which are more expensive. You could also use little notched blocks of wood, if woodworking is your hobby, or any number of other things (such as a coke bottle with a rubber band to hold the speaker cable fast. The point is, it can be trivial to test the concept before you commit yourself to enriching an accessory maker. Easy to try, you might find it is beneficial. I expect YMMV, depending on your speaker cables and your floor materials. ...claiming it is nonsense without actually trying it is bogus and demonstrates that something else is at work in your personality.