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Cable elevators - conventional wisdom wrong?

Reluctant to put any considerable money in them, the reasons for using cable elevators seemed intuitively correct to me: decouple cables mechanically from vibration and insulate them from the carpet's static. I have therefore built cheap elevators myself using Lego building blocks. (Plastic with a more or less complex internal structure; moreover, there is enormous shaping flexibility, for instance you can also build gates with suspended strings on which to rest the cables)
In their advertisement/report on the Dark Field elevators, Shunyata now claim that conventional elevators are actually (very?) detrimental in that they enable a strong static field to build up between cable and floor causing signal degradation.
Can anyone with more technical knowledge than I have assess how serious the described effect is likely to be? Would there, theoretically, be less distortion with cables lying on the floor? Has anyone actually experienced this?
karelfd
splaskin
170 posts
 
The plastic seemed a little bright; the wood more relaxed but with the open high end and detail the plastic gave me.
joeyboynj
621 posts
 
Splaskin, I bought the Waipuna Audio Mrytle wood risers. He advertises here on a-gon. They work very well and look awesome. Jeff does a beutiful job and very nice to deal with. I also picked up a set of his Myrtle wood footers. WOW! Wonderful on my HT receiver. I may order more... Thanks!
audioman58's avatar
audioman58
3,959 posts
 
Cable elevators by precision products are exceptionally well made.myself and several other friends have them and compared to all but possibly the Shunyata are the best available and at one third the price music direct has these for $120 for 8 of them with free shipping.
These are very substantially built porcelain with NO conductive coating
What so ever. Sonicly the noise floor is lower inner detail is more pronounced as well as cleaner sounding .Very good value for the
Improvement gained.
sabai
2,027 posts
 
I have so many wires in my system that I needed to come up with something novel to get them off the floor. I use a 3-shelf wicker book stand and I snake the wires through and around the wicker. This works very well for me.
tbg
5,263 posts
 
Sabai, I understand your problem with too many wires. I also have a problem with stiff power cords. Basically, I will only use the now discontinues Rightway Audio ceramic insulators. Typically, I put one pc in the notch in the insulator and others at right angles across it. This allows me to keep all wires off the floor and to not interfere with each other.

Most of my ics are in free air from one connection to the other, although I know they sound best with one isolator per set of cables, it is difficult to do. Speaker cables, however, are supported by a single isolator often high off the floor.

Were I still a potterer I would make a tall piece with multiple branches sticking off each direction and a broad base with a clear and hard glaze. This would allow one to support many cables
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