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

audiozenology"Carpets are often made of one of those "fancy" dielectrics, i.e. polypropylene, and polyethylene, and because it is a open weave"

Here is another topic where you are confused, misinformed, or else are trying to deceive. Polypropylene is very rarely used in carpet manufacturing because it has very poor wear qualities it’s most common use is for a "turf" or grass-like carpet which may be what you have in you’re living room but that is not most people’s taste it is much more common to see nylon as the fabric "of choice." Polyethylene would be used for an outdoor carpet not an indoor one.

Neither are these floor coverings "open weave" because they are not woven like a fine rug made from wool, silk, or cotton but rather they are "tufted" and this is true of a "commercial" type "loop" carpet which is continuous filament and also true of carpets with a real pile which is called "cut pile."


"Of course a worse dielectric than wood and much worse than carpet would be porcelain what those cable insulators are typically made of."

If they are such poor insulators why do electric utilities around the world use them maybe they have acquired, assembled, and studied more data, knowledge and research than you?

Clearthink,

If you are going to troll me, which appears to be what you are doing, then you better sharpen your pencil or your Google skills, or go back to school.


1) Polypropylene is the second most common material used for indoor carpets and dominates by a large measure in commercial applications. Note my wording "often". The most common residential indoor material is Nylon.

2) Weave is a somewhat generic term meaning interlacing. A Berber carpet weaves a loop into a backing but does not cut it. A cut pile carpet weaves a loop into the backing and then cuts it. In both cases, those loops are made from .... wait for it ... interlaced (weaved) threads.

Your comment w.r.t weave is pedantic, inaccurate, and most importantly missed the point w.r.t. dielectrics / dielectric constants. As the weave of both the threads themselves are open (not tight), and ditto for the overall construction, most of the carpet ends up being air. This would be similar to the foamed construction of dielectrics in commercial cables. Being essentially air, the dielectric constant of the carpet will be much lower than the raw material used in it .. akin to those fancy dielectrics (like teflon) used in audio cables.


3) Porcelain has a much higher dielectric constant than most plastics. That is not remotely debatable. Also not debatable is that purely for an insulator of high voltage, dielectric strength is the critical measure, not dielectric constant. However, where a porcelain insulator is concerned, that is still not the critical measure, since the "insulation" is really not the porcelain itself, except where it is mounted, but the distance formed by the surface of the insulator between the wire and what it is being insulated from. That is why those insulators are usually wavy to increase surface length, or in technical parlance, creepage distance. Porcelain is used because it is strong/stiff, does not break down under sunlight (like most plastics), does not oxidize, relatively impervious to environmental contaminants, smooth surface is self cleaning, is non hydroscopic, and has all those properties while also being very cheap.

audiozenology"Clearthink, If you are going to troll me, which appears to be what you are doing, then you better sharpen your pencil or your Google skills, or go back to school."
It is time for you to understand and accept that those who correct you're errors, confusions, and inaccurate representations are not trolls but simply explaining for the benefit of others and if you do not stop these attacks and personal insults on me it will be an other matter for the moderators to have to address with you so please show them some respect for them, stick to the facts, and tolerate if not welcome those who choose to also post here.

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