Cable elevators - conventional wisdom wrong?

I own the Shunyata Dark Field Elevators. They did improve the sound of my system; however the improvement was let's say 3%. In other words I could hear a difference but it wasn't night and day.

So if we are to assume Shunyata's theory is correct, and given the minimal improvement I noticed, I would probably guess you would barely hear the difference between your Lego's and my Shunyata's.

Karelfd, you could order the Shunyata's from Music
Direct, compare them, and then return them. I believe they have a 30 day return policy. It would be an interesting experiment and I would love to hear the results.

Justin

I fully agree with Rushton. Like him, my dedicated listening room has synthetic carpet, and also like him I have used pieces of cardboard (and have for years) to keep speaker cables elevated with the same significant results he has obtained. However, raising interconnect cables off the floor has never registered any improvement in sound for me, but as they say, YMMV.

I use cables that have mass loaded non ferrous dielectric insulator to absorb and deflect vibration and emf. Can it get better....always. Tom

There's a few interesting points here.

Firstly, Justin who has the Shunyata's, says he thinks the lego would have much the same effect. This is what I meant by snake-oil sellers; I'll bet the Shunyata's are a bit more expensive than Lego!

Secondly, Shunyata's own website says that the Dark Field elevators are made of "...electrically conductive foam. This allows static charges to migrate through the elevator eliminating the build up of static field differentials between the floor and cable that would otherwise create noticeable signal degradation."

Now, if you're going to use a material that conducts static charges, you might as well leave the cable in contact with the carpet in the first place, as this will have the same result. Static charges wont dissipate into the air unless the voltage is massive (millions of volts), so all the Shunyata's are doing is allowing the static charge to spread up the elevators to the speaker cable sleeve. Leaving the cable on the floor does the same thing.

And thirdly, I still advocate that the only true way to listen for such small variations (like the 3% mentioned above) is with moderately quick A/B comparisons; trying to compare any sense (hearing, sight etc) to the memory of a sense (what we heard/saw a few minutes/hours ago) is very unreliable. Not only are you relying on your memory for comparisons, but so many other influences can change in the time between comparisons that you can't be sure what caused any difference.

Might I suggest that you first try the following cable lifters, which I suspect must have been mentioned in some previous post. They will give you the opportunity to run a listening test prior to any purchase. Each cable lifter is comprised of three wooden chopsticks and a rubber band that binds them about 1/5 of the way down their length. Spread the long ends into a tripod and secure them down in the weave of the carpet. The shorter ends above the rubber band create a “basket” that should secure most cables. My Supra Swords are not the most well behaved cables and two of these little tripods support a spiral of three passes behind one of my speakers. They also present a very small visual signature.

If your letter carrier delivers your mail bundled with rubber bands and you order Chinese take-out every so often this experiment will cost you only your time. Good luck.