Does raising speaker cables off the floor really make a big difference?

You have to ask yourself, do you really think the sound stage, which is almost all a factor of recording and speaker/room interaction, would magically collapse due to some exceedingly low level interaction between a cable and the floor?

goose390 posts12-18-2019 11:06amWhen we at RMAF this year, there was an A/B demo in the Synergistic Research room of having the cable lifters in and then out. There was an immediate collapse in the soundstage when they were removed. So the wild card in this demo was that the lifters also included an HFT as part of the lifter. Was it the lifter or the HFT?

Bdp24, facing both directions? And I suppose one direction will make a fabulous, incredible improvement in image depth or some such and the other will not? Shit, you learn something every day. 

I tried raising cables off the floor for about a year. Tried them back on the floor and heard no difference. Michael Greene seems to believe in risers, but he also told me the type of metal the screws are made of which hold down circuit boards in components would also affect the sound. YMMV.

You have to ask yourself, do you really think the sound stage, which is almost all a factor of recording and speaker/room interaction, would magically collapse due to some exceedingly low level interaction between a cable and the floor?

Exactly. And funny how such a dramatic "change" is something no one (TMK) has ever demonstrated in a blind test.

It might serve to balance things to do a little googling on some of the controversies that have arisen with...*ahem*....certain tweak-selling and cable-producing company’s show demos.

(Somewhat along those lines: One engineer on an audio site talked about how, upon seeing a demo and the associated claims from one of these manufacturers at a show, he started asking simple technical questions and proposing how the claimed phenomenon could be tested. He was greeted not with the type of exchange one might expect between engineers, but with suggestions that lawyers may get involved if he wants to pursue that line of questioning).


But...there are audiophiles who want to believe....so there’s a market that will sell to them.

You have to ask yourself, do you really think the sound stage, which is almost all a factor of recording and speaker/room interaction, would magically collapse due to some exceedingly low level interaction between a cable and the floor?

All the subtle information we look for with our ears, in a recording, is low in level..so yes..I would expect that the subtle and easy to disturb high slew rate impossibly intertwined micro signals involved in our limits of human resolution ..might benefit from some careful handling.

The gross and subtle signals are also paired up in the sense of requiring perfected micro timing and long term accurate micro timing differentials between them for our hearing limits to be fully engaged...so yes..... there would be a difference between the two with the cable suspended vs just laying on the average floor.

All things being equal, as in good system, gross mechanical and complex LCR differences between floor and suspended, good hearing in the individual that is part of the experiment, and so on.

All things are not quite equal with respect to one person and their system, vs another.