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Cheap cable raisers, do they make a difference ?
- Thread starter gasolin75
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More reliable than only measuring frequency response. Tuning the frequency response is a very important step, but it is just one piece of the puzzle; if you stop there it is likely that you are not getting the most from your system. But do whatever makes you happy, which by far is the most important reason for this hobby.
DonR
Major Contributor
I could not reliably tell if a singer has moved a foot more forward in the sound stage by memory alone. I posit that no one could either. It is just guessing.
This more sarcasm I hope...
It was a suggestion for anybody who wanted to hear for themselves whether cable risers make a difference, using something they may already have available instead of spending money just to try.
I figured what the heck and gave it a try. It made absolutely no audible difference whatsoever. Zilch, nada, rien.
mhardy6647
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It's more than just front to back. Speaker position and toe in also can affect how well delineated singers and instruments are in the sound stage, the width of the sound stage, and to a smaller extent the height of the sound stage. The differences can be significant enough, as in my case, that they are immediately recognizable after having spent so much time listening to the speakers in their previous positions.
There must be a better way to keep people away from the electronics... And any cat or dog would jump right over those. Clearly you need higher risers.
LOL just such nonsense it is to begin with....let alone a serious approach that just bears that out....
There is a LOT of misinformation in the Audio hobby. I figure that if in the future I am going to try to enlighten somebody on the subject, I should at least have given it a try.
Same thing with speaker wire. I've compared inexpensive speaker wire to expensive speaker wire - also no audible difference (at least for the relatively short lengths I tried).
The worst are expensive power cords; someone may have over 50' of Romex connecting their outlet to the breaker panel, and then think changing the last 6' between the outlet and audio equipment is going to make a difference... Or, like an expensive USB cable or an expensive router is going to change the digital 0s and 1s...
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Getting back to science and engineering, I wonder how someone might characterize the physics of moving cables off the floor. Is the theory based on dielectric interaction between the floor and the outer layer of the cable's insulation ("fixed" by the air gap)? Or is it an electromagnetic interaction with something in or below the floor?
At Radio Frequencies and/or high power there are good reasons to use air gaps, but I don't really see how it's necessary below 20kHz and below 100V.
At Radio Frequencies and/or high power there are good reasons to use air gaps, but I don't really see how it's necessary below 20kHz and below 100V.
Do you really want to live your life with that small voice eternally whispering, ’if only I had spent more on cable lifters’,
Keith
Keith
mhardy6647
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The audiophile "theory" has something to do with dielectric constants, and issues with stuff like polyolefin carpet fiber, at least as I "understand" it.
The cable lifter thing reminds me of much pseudoscience -- which sounds superficially plausible... at least to non-specialists in whatever discipline.
The long-running cadre of perpetual motion schemes is, I'd opine, based on similar mis- (or under) interpretation of well-established physical principles.
EDIT: And, of course, there actually are some best practices mixed in with the mumbo-jumbo. It is probably not a good idea to, e.g., run signal-carrying wires (or signal and power cables) in parallel and in close proximity for long stretches; crossing at right angles is probably better a priori. Probably not a great idea to coil up excess cabling that's in use (i.e., why make any flavor of inductor where one doesn't want one?)... stuff like that. But it can get pretty silly pretty fast.
Elevating cables, I would think, is a do no harm exercise -- as long as one doesn't get carried away with the complexity and/or the cost of the endeavor. The photo from this year's Munich "High End" expo would illustrate being carried away, I'd suggest.
I need to see the data. Lots of speculation in this thread, no evidence.
It is irrefutable that Krispy Kreme doughnuts are good and expensive.
Keith
Keith
One aspect is inductance. If a floor has high permeability, it could increase the inductance along the signal path if there is wide spacing between the signal (e.g., positive) and return (e.g., negative) wires. The closer together the signal and return wires, the more their respective magnetic fields will cancel, and the less impact the floor would have. It is not uncommon for concrete slabs to have Rebar, which has high permeability, but the Rebar usually sits a couple of inches below the floor surface. Unless the signal and return wires were widely separated and at least one of them were running right over, and parallel to, a piece of Rebar, I highly doubt the floor would increase the inductance enough to create an audible impact in most systems.
The other aspect is capacitance. Conductivity in the floor can increase capacitance between the wires, as well as capacitance between the wires and the ground. Rebar in a concrete slab or ventilation ducts under the floor could increase capacitance, but their distance from the wires typically will be too large to have a significant impact below 20 kHz, and thus inaudible in most systems. Also, the floor may have a dielectric constant higher than air, which may have a tiny impact on capacitance, but also probably negligible for most systems.
I have read that some amplifiers are extremely sensitive to capacitance, and even relatively low capacitance on the speaker cables can create oscillations. I have never seen this first hand nor investigated it, but perhaps it could be an issue with tube amplifiers. Tube amplifiers typically have output transformers. It could be that in some cases there is a resonance between the inductance of the output transformers and the capacitance of the wire. Even if the resonance occurs above the audio frequency band, perhaps it could cause issues in the audible band, e.g., due to sub harmonics of the resonant frequency. If this were the case, raising the cables off of the floor could be beneficial. But, as noted, this is speculation based on amplifier characteristics I have read about on the Internet and which I have never experienced, so that speculation needs to be taken with a truck load of salt.
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