Cable elevators
My Saturday hifi tweaking involved digging out the family’s box of wooden building blocks and using them to elevate my speaker cables off the floor. Previously under an area carpet on a wood floor. Mc 601s to SF Amati with Wireworld speaker cables (to be replaced with Cardas).
The result—mind you the system is playing really well right now thanks to my new Cardas interconnects—is greater clarity (I think), sound stage, and texture. This is definitely about wringing out the last ounce of the system and maybe I’m imagining the improvement. I don’t think I’d spend any money on buying risers, but what the hell why not use the old building block. Looks dopey and the family laughs at me, but dang does the system sound amazing.
Anyone else play with risers/elevators?
It can cost pennies to lift Cables from being directly in contact with anything. I will take a wild guess and suggest my Lifted Speaker Cable method, took approx' 30 minutes to achieve, inclusive or searching for items I never search for, i.e Cotton Reel and Drawing Pin. I would say the cost incurred (Speaker Cable not Included) £00.03p. That is the same type of cost I try and generate when buying used CD's at a Yard Sale. |
One thing you might consider is rather than using cable risers, suspend your speaker cables with string from the ceiling. The advantage here is your speaker cables can be completely isolated from the power cords and other connectors because after leaving the amplifier terminals they go up, not down into the cord milieu. The improvement many folks assume comes from the risers actually comes from getting the speaker cables away from the power cords and other connectors by lifting them off the ground. However, with risers you are still in relatively close proximity to the other cords in your system. This tweak costs you nothing. |
You didn't respond to the measurable difference. There is a measurable difference of lower capacitance when cable risers are used. I also don't convince myself that there is a positive difference just because I've spent money on something, in fact there have been times that I thought something way less expensive sounded better than the more expensive item. |
Re: milpai (I have carpet in the listening room. During winters if I have to switch OFF the preamp and amp, I have to first touch the walls and then touch the equipment. Too much static with the carpet.) Back in the day when I was managing an audio-video facility we would kill the static by spritzing the carpet with fabric softener from a spray bottle. It killed the static and left the studio smelling springtime fresh. |
The last two times I relocated my system (since 2020, due to the pandemic), I was lazy and didn't bother with installing the cable risers I had for several months. Both times (once on carpet and once on wood floors) I was bowled over by the magnitude of the improvement and chastised myself for being so stupid and waiting so long. Sonically, before risers I was hearing the players in my room. After risers, i was going to their room. My system is pretty resolving, ARC and Martin-Logan CLXs. I use a combination of two versions of SR risers and the Audioquest FogLifters to get different heights of my signal and power cables. I count ~48 risers in my system right now. |
