Cable lifters/towers- voodoo or the real thing?


This is something I've been wrestling with for some time. After spending as much on equipment as I have, I'm hesitant about dropping a rather menial sum on cable lifters or towers. It's literally the cost of a few cases of premium imported beer, but I just can't believe what I read about them. Six Moons glowed about Dedicated Audio's Cable Towers, but I'm not sure if I buy it. Perhaps it's because I don't understand the reasoning behind them. Any opinions or thoughts to educate me here? Am I being an idiot not getting any? Right now, I just have a tangled mess of cables lying on the floor, suspended in air from being relatively stretched....is it a good way to tweak a system?
afc

Showing 6 responses by nsgarch

Digsmithd -- I'm curious. What kind of floor is in your listening room: concrete slab or wood floor over joists?
Digsmithd, I wasn't enquiring about the floor finish (the carpet;--), I was enquiring about the floor construction -- what's under the carpet?

Concrete slab-on-grade (dirt), or concrete slab in a highrise bldg.,
OR
wood joists over a crawl space or perhaps over another room, with a plywood subfloor?

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I asked because it's the floor *construction* that determines if and what kind of lifters/isolators you might need.

In a floor like yours, inductive interaction from laying on (or very close to, even if there's a carpet) a grounded surface like a reinforced concrete slab, is not an issue.

What *might* be an issue is vibration, and usually this will affect both speaker cables and interconnects (unless you have carpet in which case the interconnects are pretty well isolated by the carpet.

Cable lifters that can transmit floor vibration may not be that much help. A better solution in that case will be swimming pool 'noodles' if you can find them in a decent color ;--) Slice them into 4" - 6" lengths and string them onto your cable. (Gray pipe insulation can also be used but needs to have the seam held together with contact cement.)
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Afc, you never said what kind of floor construction in your listening room, but speaker cables are the most vulnerable to both mechanical vibration (wood framing over a crawl space) and ground inductance (reinforced concrete slab, either on dirt or in a steel/concrete highrise.)

You're right, power cables and IC's are exempt ;--)
If you have carpet etc they work BIG TIME!!
And what kind of floor construction is under your carpet? And what exactly do you mean by "work BIG TIME"? What do they do, or what problems do they eliminate; and what kind of cables are you referring to?

If you want your experience to mean something to others, you have to qualify your remarks. Otherwise, it's just another empty opinion ;--)
Afc, OK your problem (if you have one) is mechanical vibration, and not electrical inductance. Standard wood frame construction which meets the building codes, can vibrate a speaker cable lying directly upon the floor or even on carpet. Vibration introduced to the conductors can affect the music signal, but 'if' and 'how much' depends on many factors, such as the construction of the cable, particularly the thickness and material of the outer jacket, the cable's length, the strength of the vibration, etc. So the foam insulators would be appropriate if there is a problem -- but that's the part that's hard to determine.

If your speaker cables have relatively thin outer jacket material, or even none, like the Speltz anti-cables, then isolating them from mechanical contact with the floor (assuming the floor vibrates) should result in a quieter (blacker?) program background, with instruments and vocals having better definition -- but it's a tough call, and only you know if your system is improved.