Two to three inches off the carpet is fine.
Anything non-conductive will work. I've seen styrofoam cups, chopstick tripods, dowel tripods, antique power or telephone cable insulators (that's what i use - 5$ a piece and they look cool - green glass usually).
You can suspend the cables in place with whatever is non-conductive and relatively obcured by the cable color. My cables are black techflex covered, so i use black nylon thread...doesn't need much support to keep them there.
I don't think you got an answer for proximity. I'd like to see a post from someone with a clue. Perhaps do a search on the cable asylum on www.audioasylum.com.
Anything non-conductive will work. I've seen styrofoam cups, chopstick tripods, dowel tripods, antique power or telephone cable insulators (that's what i use - 5$ a piece and they look cool - green glass usually).
You can suspend the cables in place with whatever is non-conductive and relatively obcured by the cable color. My cables are black techflex covered, so i use black nylon thread...doesn't need much support to keep them there.
I don't think you got an answer for proximity. I'd like to see a post from someone with a clue. Perhaps do a search on the cable asylum on www.audioasylum.com.