I have just made speaker cable risers from oak wood and i can definitely hear a difference. More fine low-level detail, freer very high frequencies and more dynamic, faster transients and perceived louder peaks. My hardwood floor has underfloor water heating and I believe I have reduced the capacitance of the cables by raising them 6 inches off the floor.. My system is very good at resolving detail. My older Exposure amplifier is -3dB I believe at 100 kHz so it has a very extended frequency response. I do my best to have very clean AC, as little RF as possible and negligible susceptibility to non-audio signals so the amplifier can spend its energy on audio-band signals. Speaker cables are Kimber Crystal 24, length of each side is 4.5 metres or about 14 feet. Another huge improvement was gained by isolating the KEF Reference Three Two loudspeakers from the floor with compliant anti-vibration feet for washing machines. Here again huge amounts of treble energy liberated after isolation, better detail resolution. All the best, Rob in Switzerland
Hi. Found you via Vinyl Attack. Nice to hear your explanation of some of the cable issues (your speaker cable reminds me in appearance of the first Shunyata signal cables, which they sourced from someone else). I've sold serious cables for about 30 years now. Even with that I avoided risers. However I was wrong, even though my system right now, which is very high resolution, doesn't respond much. All the variables you mentioned are in play but in my case I use monoblocks and the cables are only 5' long. Not much was lying on the carpet. I did put my manufacturer's risers under them and the difference was really fairly slight. Although this company makes some extraordinarily expensive products, the risers aren't at $150 for a pack of 8. The designer thinks the massive "high end" ones perform worse. These are plastic cables with a piece of nylon string stretch between their U shape. The cable just rests on it with a tiny contact area. I'm glad I found you. Always love places where I can continue learning and send friends and customers.
Daanny I only come here for the plain truth. You lay everything on the table. It's easy to understand and everything I've learned here matches my own findings. I'm putting into practice everything I've leaned here over the years. Unfortunately currently I don't have room for indoors hifi. But I built a completely sq build. Competing in IASCA SQ daily truck comp this season. I have custom passive crossovers with mylar film caps and sonic caps bypass caps. Braided my own cables with a 7/16 poly ripe center wrapped with custom braided 16gx6 - 28 strand conductors woven by hand each half wrapped in tpfe tape then wrapped as one. Each conductor is wound in opposing directions. Then soildered and terminated on the ends. My hands are still cramped. But man was it worth it. Image and stage jumped to life. Upper vocal ranger. No words. Took me 3 years to get here and still not done. Lol😂 blackhole of hifi! Love ❤️ it. Danny keep it up.
Many thumbs up! LOL Wonderful audiophile world. I have yet to try cable risers. I do have hardwood floor but I think it would make a difference. First, I have to upgrade my speakers with your crossover kits. When I get time, I'll do it.
Cable Risers, like so many other aspects of the hobby, are exactly the reason why it's difficult to have audio and speakers as a hobby. Because you can so quickly reach a brick wall in the hobby, where there isn't anything left to do, that people begin to look for more things they can do or desire, so they can continue the hobby. This also causes an Emperors New Clothes effect where the person thinks they hear improvements because they WANT to hear improvements, because otherwise they have to admit the hobby is at another brick wall. Think about it, you get your favorite amp, sources, and processors, combine them with your dream speakers, and set them up in an acoustically friendly room. That's it! Hobby over! Time to put your time somewhere else! But some people don't WANT to stop there, so they have to keep finding ways to continue the hobby. This is where everything from cable risers to Snake Oils to the little disk you just place on your CD player in the 90's that was supposed to "clean up" your digital audio stream. And of course people think they hear a difference. They aren't able to perform a true ABX test between their exact system before the change and after the change, so hearing a slight difference means you didn't just waste your time and money, and you can keep moving forward with the hobby infinitely! Yay!
Just like after you wash your sports car. Always seems faster and better, in reality its not. Its all in our head. Its normal for men to have mental complexes that make us think we're better at things than we are. Many audiophiles think they are trained critical listeners, in reality they have no idea what their doing and won't believe anyone that tells them any different.
@@iowaudioreviews Yeah and it's a major red flag when they say things like "I know my system!, I heard a difference". No, you don't know your system. You will start to forget how it sounds a few seconds after listening and even while you are listening you can only focus on one or two attributes at a time. Blind test or GTFO.
I suspend my cables off the floor with wild horse hair from Mongolia, the difference in sound is incredible. Wrap cable twice then make a suspension support above cables, approximately 2’ 3”. high.
Yes, but you need to burn in those horse hairs for at least a week of continuous listening before they perform at their optimum. Female Mongolian horse hairs will affect the treble more further enhancing fine details while Mongolian male horse hairs are awesome for subwoofer cables.
Be careful with the Female Mongolian horse hairs cables risers. They are only good if they are harvested when the horse is pregnant. Otherwise they might even ruin your sound stage. Now you know!
A life long friend of mine has a great system, he is really into his music, his front room has 6 windows and patio doors, his wife changed the curtains and the material type and he said it has changed the sound 😁
Excellent advice. My journey followed a similar path. Well after my system achieved a good 3d sound stage I read about cable risers and skeptically tried them and observed similar results. I have used cardboard V risers. My fastest most cost effective was paper coffee cups. Paper has a dielectric coefficient as good as cotton. I am so cheap I saved my morning coffee cups. Cut a V in the top and they work well. 3" tall. Bingo. Currently I don't need them. The speaker cable is sized to travel from the monobloc to the speaker without touching the floor. Now for an even more controversial topic. I find a slight improvement getting power cables up off the carpet. Impact is a slight sense of compression of the sound like you have with a new capacitor. Not as pronounced. Definitely could not pick it out in a controlled ABX test. But once you hear it, it stays in the system. One of those hundred little things that all add up.
In my last home I couldn't have the cables on the floor but the was a wooden rail around the room about a foot from the ceiling with hooks screwed into it so I used so sewing thred and hung the cables using it from the hooks and yes the cables gained around 4 foot in length but it made a huge difference even with a low end budget audio system (less than £700 all in turntable, tapedeck, receiver, secondhand speakers)
@@neandrewthal there was less background noise (hum) with the cables hung so wasn't placebo effect. The reason I think was concrete floor with old-school electric underfloor heating (floor was basically a massive kettle element)
I'm in the UK and we have carpets in all our rooms. I found a distinct improvement in using small light wooden blocks as risers in my system (mid level LP12 and Musical Fidelity separates). Also keeping interconnects away from mains power cables.
You can dramatically improve the sound quality of your cable lifters if you paint the Tinker Toy surfaces with a green Sharpie. You won't believe how it cleans up the female vocals to the crash of cymbals.
Most important is to burn the cable lifters, cables and voice coils in with continuous listening to heavy metal for at least 2 weeks at max volume. This doesn’t mean burning your speakers so lower the volume slightly at the point when the voice coils start to smoke. Rather than paint, dip those cable lifters in oil before the burn in as the oil will enhance the soundstage much more than any color of cheap paint. The best oil is genuine python oil. Some cheaper oils from other snakes will cause a slight resonant ring through capacitance and inductance effects yielding female voices to be elevated and the soundstage to narrow.
My stereo system sounds better on Wednesdays, it's really amazing. I challenge everyone to listen to their systems on Wednesdays compared to the rest off the week. You have to have a REALLY GOOD SYSTEM to hear the difference.
It is well known that on Wednesdays the power grid is cleaner as most people have fallen in a numb mid week routine. They flick lights less, fridges are half empty and running less hard, etc. Try a power conditioner the other days. Will blow your -wallet- mind. Must be > $10K. Anything below is garbage... This said I am puzzled. My own audio system sounds better on Friday evenings, after the 1st beer. Can't put my finger on it... 🤔
Hi there. Induction and self induction always influence a current. And it transforms the signal. What is your problem? Want to deny the laws of physics?
I would have to disagree. My $1000 dollar stereo speakers powered by a $500 amplifier with $30000 cables and $40000 cable risers sounds best on Monday at around 7 pm up till 7:30. The soundstage simply gets wider but on Wednesdays, my system sounds like a mono setup.
@@chrisvanderaa6706 So perhaps we should start opening up our amplifiers and moving around the boards inside and then redesigning the circuits at different distances to hear if it sounds different? How about suspending our amplifiers off of the shelf that they're on would that make a difference in sound?
For unshielded cables there is an electric field around the cable when active. Maybe the floor interferes with that. But a few inches from the cable, the intensity of the field decreases. So where the field is most intense it has a clear space for the electric field to happen (and doesn't affect the signal as much as on the floor). Just my snake oil hypothesis.
@@chriswithall2518 Agreed. That was always my theory as well. I felt that synthetic carpet like I have could be the worst offender. but then I see a video where Jay saw a big impact on his hdw floors. Who knows?
You really need to use a cable cooker first, followed by the cd demagnetizer and don't forget to check the direction of the electron flow marked on the wire.
Love it, I just recently saw Chris's video on this when he visted with you. I have your 24-strand cables and will try this very cheap tweek. I ordered the Tinker Toys and I thnk they will be safe as my grandkids play with Legos, although I guess Legos would work as well LoL
I recently took a motorsports wiring course. For digital signal wires that connect CANBUS components, not only are you not supposed to run parallel wires, the twists per inch is specified! Very similar to your closer to 90 degree explanation. It cancels noise in high frequency data wires.
I'm curious about the sound difference using self-powered speakers and digital signals (AES) (or line level in shielded signal cable/conduit) to the monitors and how they compare to separate amplifiers. Personally, I have found self-powered systems to work quite well.
would this be the same for power cables and interconnects, or only something that affects speaker cables. Not that my system is anywhere near the level that it would make a difference but just curious. Thanks for the great video Danny.
our trips to ikea, purchased some cheap glass tea light holders with little slot designs at the top that could (effectively) cradle my cables. And - dammit - it made quite a difference.
i used to do a lot of FCC compliance work with power supplies where we had to meed requirements for the level of interference we could put back on the power line feeding the equipment under test. i used a $25k spectrum analyzer to read the level of interference we were cause and did what ever it took to get us below the limits.I would add common mode chokes, capacitors across the line and to ground but in the end the layout of the parts was more important than which parts I used. There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy [science]
Yeah, isn't this crazy. Several people that I have had over for a listen thought the difference was so clear that they whipped out their phones and ordered some Tinker Toys before they left my room.
@Cody Smith We do that all the time. Chris (from Vinyl Attack) was here and and we did that. He talked about it in a video. I would love to get Gene to come. I have invited him privately and publicly.
I started using cable risers after following the uTube channel, A stereophile in Seattle. I can vouch that keeping the power cord off the floor makes a huge difference. As for speaker cable I’m not sure as I’m still looking for the right cable. I’ve sued from I could have bought a small car with the money to lamp cord. Maybe I’ll give you a call and try yours. Good video.
Okay, this can make perfect sense on a concrete slab home. There is a grid of rebar in the concrete. The home's electrical system, if it's a relatively new home, within the last 50 years or so, the electrical system is grounded to the rebar in the slab. So, the question then remains. How high off the floor do the cables need to be? Has anybody tested different elevations?
This is the problem with science that's not well understood. It's just arbitrary and maybe it helps, maybe it doesn't, maybe it could make it worse. How would you know, other than trusting your brain? PS. IT (brain) LIES TO US. But hey, give it a try. If you think it makes a difference, it probably makes a difference.
On one of our trips to ikea, purchased some cheap glass tea light holders with little slot designs at the top that could (effectively) cradle my cables. And - dammit - it made quite a difference.
So how do I manage the 50 cables hanging off the back of my equipment? I can't seperate all those cables in the cabinet. Is there a similar cable management system for all the power, RCA and speaker wire mess behind the cabinet?
With pinpoint center and wide soundstage you can make, a lot things are sensitive. Doesn't need to be costly along the chain or good room treatment. You can DIY or buy prettier cable raiser. There is a difference doesn't mean you need to change it.
I install PA systems and use a Tone Generator and Probe Kit. Which will allow me to hear the music on the cable just by hovering the wand next to the cable. I can disconnect the speaker and still hear the music on the cable using the probe. Very good tool for finding out where interference is being added to the cables. Tried it at home, cables on nylon mix carpet had a lot of background static. Lifted cables of floor using lego blocks and this removed the static I was hearing on the cables. No noticeable difference at the speaker end. But I believe it would be noticeable on a higher end system.
I don't think microphonics of the speaker cable would make difference when low impedance device such loudspeakers are connected. The signal from amplifier to loudspeaker is rather large, comparing to signal from say from gramophone pick-up. Damn it would be actually easier to notice with low impedance headphones and good headphone amp if there differences. But my guess there wouldn't be difference with loudspeakers, and crossovers actually distort the signal in all possible domains: amplitude, phase, time delay to such degree that the signal summed reproduced loudspeaker other than amplitude is very different from original. I would think of cable risers influence as pure fantasy rather than science.
Is it electrical or vibrational issues affecting the cable, and what’s under the floor? If height doesn’t matter then perhaps using slit pipe insulation,cut into short pieces would do the job too
I use cork sanding blocks on a hardwood floor with Nordost Red Dawn on a modest setup (Rega CD and a 10 watt PSE). And it gives a better detailed bass.
in the UK back in the past some audiophiles experimented using fine fishing lines attached to the ceiling lifting the cables & claimed it made a difference i kid you not.
This is yet another example of why double blind testing is needed for tweaks like this. Anything can make a huge difference, whether it's real or not. It is also true for crossover components. It all has to do with expectations. If you change something, and tell the listener to find differences, they will. The brain can't isolate sound from other senses, no matter how hard we try. It's a very interesting phenomenon.
so that is why some musicians need auto tune because we can,t hear the difference and practicing together is just a con .go and see live music if you can,t tell a good band from an ordinary one get another hobby .
@@tobiasjames6949 In which ocean though diving in the Indian Ocean is so much better than the pacific especially if you live there . I will guess you meant water divining with a rod or stick can you hear past your own rhetoric ?.
I like the tinker toys! Great simple tweak. What difference would be made if you shortened your cables? The ones behind you seem to be too long and are snaking around some.
I wonder if any of this would be measurable with a VNA? I know moving an antenna near any object can cause dramatic changes in the antennas characteristics but this is also in the UHF realm.
Any idea what the mechanism for the perceived improvement is? I can't think of anything myself, all of the floors in my house (and a tremendous amount of others too) are wooden so I can't see how any electromagnetic effect can be involved.
good information , key points are cotton ,right angle spacing ,dialectric new to me .will these be applicable to all cables power , interconnect ,speaker etc ?
Wondering if the cable manufacturer recommends that customers put their cables on risers? And if so, does that mean they should just be making a better cable that does not require this tweak? Also, are their any instrumented measurements that show a signal difference? Just wondering.
I started off wondering if this video was posted 13 days late ... still for the effort of cutting up some cardboard to make risers its worth a go wonder if my radiogram will sound better for it though.
Tried it back and forward a few days with my speaker cables, sounded better without the risers and just lying on the carpet. There was definitely a difference, with the risers voices became thinner and almost fatiguing. I now use them to route the power cables over the signal cables but stay away from the speaker cables 👍 Still find it strange to notice a difference 😳
At dealers, shows, that I have seen the use of risers, the explanation was always the same, static electricity in the carpet was affecting the sonics and that it wouldn't have much effect on wooden floors. Never heard of rebar in concrete issue or see how cryogenically treating the risers would improve things. But hell if it works, c'est la vie.
I used to be an electrician and a elevator mechanic and I could trouble shoot basic electric circuits it also seemed the more I learned the more confused it seemed so I am not a electrical engineer. but I just watched a video from a guy who is a ee, somewhere along the way I learned electricity travels along the skin of an electrical wire now in this video I watched it said electrons move from electric motive force(with means the lines of force that radiate out from a wire that has electrical current moving thru it) causes electrons to flow outside the wire not on the skin or thru the core... which would mean being on the floor could very well make a diff... but to be honest it is completely over my head. I have a nice entry level system 1500$ speakers and a 3000$ receiver and A1500$ integrated amp playing airplay or CD player as a source and listening to zeppelin and the like. It probably wouldn't make a difference but it does sound pretty good. I went all thru that to say I like the way Danny explained it and if I was quite a bit upstream in a system I might be interested but since I am in the bottom 80 to 90 percent I will just say thanks for the video
"Skin effect" is a real thing in signal transmission, but it isn't a factor at the low frequencies of audio signals. There are other audiophiles with engineering backgrounds who can do a better job of what actually matters in an audio system and why.
Yep, this skin effect non-sense and cable riser bs has been debunked by audio research over the years. There's published scientific papers out there on it. These kind of audio guys refuse to acknowledge them or read them and just trust their ears. Well science has also taught us our ears and brain can't be trusted either. At least not for this sort thing were memorizing fidelity is required. Why blind tests always debunk this nonsense. There's plenty of audio demonstrations out there that easily fool human hearing and the mind. Statistically much of this is all in our heads.
Danny is your floor on the ground ie is it a slab of concrete or perhaps is there already electrical cables running through your floor just trying to make sense of why this is making a difference. I'm in an upstairs flat so if its because you're lifting them up away from ground then it's unlikely to change in a flat but if its because of proximity to other electrical cables then it may just make a difference in a flat as well.
I raised my cables off my carpeted floor in my fairly expensive system and the difference was very apparent. I had trouble understanding the lyrics but after I lifted the cables off the floor with some folded pieces of cardboard I could hear every word clearly.
I use to have my cables on the floor. I could hear some distortion but thought maybe it was a loose connection somewhere. One day while moving my speakers around I drapped the cables over my chair to get them out of the way and when I listen to them no distortion. I thought hmmm it couldnt be but lets see so I placed the cables back on the floor and there was that static sound. When asked others as to why most said snake oil. Then one person said it all depends on whats underneath your flooring.
Yes. It's just the laws of physics. Remove or minimize as many variables that can transform an electrical signal. And all transformation is degradation. I am a believer. Now first i need money to buy a high end system, so i can also experience that influence. I like your practical approach to solving the problems in signal paths.
More than 30 years ago I had a Hewlett Packard 4800 Vector impedance Meter. I bought it second hand in a computer shop. When I was measuring the impedance from speakers that I had built, there was a strange reading on the meter when I moved the cables an inch or so sideways. They were just on a wooden floor. When I lifted the cables several inches from the floor and moved the cable sideways there was no effect on the meter. I thought maybe it was the radiation of a power cable in the floor but could not find any cable there. So, I'm not at all surprised that cable risers have some effect.
It looks like your cables are about 3" off the floor. Do you know if the benefits are reduced or change much by only lifting the cables 1/2" -1" off the floor?
It's only 1/3 as good. The best is really about a foot. Not only does it make the soundstage bloom like a titillated ground squirrel in springtime, but it will also trip any thief should they break into your house 😇
I’m trying to find the video where someone has speaker wire connected to an oscilloscope. Simply lifting the wire of the bench you can see the noise on the scope disappear. I think it was Cardas or Danny himself who did the video. If you can measure a difference on a scope then you can hear a difference on a resolving enough system.
Wood floors are held down with flat steel nails (they are below the surface so you can't see them). Carpeted floors are on sheet goods that are held down with steel screws. When you complain about iron / steel in connectors, this is the same thing steel along the speaker wires will have similar problems. Ideally when you use spacers do not place them uniformly to prevent a high Q situation (this also applies to computer wires especially long runs).
Hi Danny. I have been using cable risers for years. The best cheap option is 3 wooden chopsticks and some string tied into a tepee. This costs practically nothing and is an easy way of testing this principle, to see if it can work for you. Give it a whirl.
Lowes sells a plastic cone shaped tower called a rebar chair. Its 58 cents. It looks good under the cables and it does improve the sound. Improved imaging and focus, is noticeable in my system. Dirt cheap! Looks good and sounds good. All you have to lose is $15 at Lowes. Just try it with a open mind. Yes I am serious.
My HEMP insulated wires sound even better!! But only if I hang them from organic silk threads. Actually, 11 gauge RG-8 Coax is a fantastic sounding speaker wire and I would sincerely love to see a comparison. I would buy the RG-8 and mail it to you to compare.
I've got my speakers up against a rattle-colorizing LCD projection TV. If I could somehow get it out of the way, it'd make a huge difference I suspect. In the video I made last night, I imagined Danny trying to listen to my system, but wanting to move the TV cus it was colorizing the sound to much. If a second person was here, I could move it. Trouble is, there's nowhere TO move it. I have made risers to keep speaker cables away from power cords before. Mostly just OCD tho.
I tried tinker toys for my wires. I found a set at a yard sale. It didn't sound much different but it may be that my system is not as detailed. After viewing this video, the price of these tinker toys just went up 💯% .😎 BTW your Amps might benefit from iso platforms? Greg
I would be interested in a variable riser system that could lift or raise the cables, thus providing a listening in real time experiment. This might also help to ascertain what height is optimal for the room/floor material. Perhaps different heights would provide different results for different cables, environments or even sources or types of music. I envision a lift from above setup so the 'lifting' method does not affect the cable. Or perhaps a string pulled X lifter. C'mon engineers, if you build it, they will listen...
What's your floor construction? Is it a concrete slab? If so, there is probably steel mesh reinforcement (often 6" x 6" grid). Or is the floor constructed in another way? What's going on?
I think it is worth saying the obvious BTW. The sounds that make that final big difference in realism in sound stage are in the micro details. There are a lot of things that can muffle these tiny micro or pico volt signals. This is where coupling capacitors, connectors, teflon dielectric, and cable architecture all come into play. So your comment that most people will never hear this is spot on. Most systems while very nice at their level just do not play these sounds that spook us and excite us. When it all comes together it is pretty amazing. I can spontaneously sense the human emotion of the artist singing. It is captured by a microphone and ends up years later in my sound room on demand. It is like that observation when a mother spontaneously lactates upon hearing her baby cry while not responding to any other child in the room. It is in our DNA, and we respond when it is done right.
I run my speaker cables under the floor of my house so I use cable lowerers. The difference in sound is amazing...the bass is lower and the high notes are more defined and the sound stage is wider and more open. Also I have removed all the tubes and transistors, capacitors and resistors in my equipment as they cause phase and harmonic and IM distortion. You're probably wondering how I get amplification without the above mentioned components. It's classified information that I'm not allowed to reveal, but suffice it to say it involves plasma molecular anaerobic junctioning. You will be hearing more about this in the coming months if you read the science journals that deal in audiology, acoustics and sound wave insanity.
I have chunky speaker cables and do run them under the floor , keeps my wife happy and does sound great but I but that down to the cable not any other factor.
How to do you measure the depth, width, height and layering of the imaging and sound stage? In the past I’ve put bits of tape on the front and side walls marking positions of where certain effects, instruments or vocals come from, Swapping out bits of gear or moving room treatment makes a serious difference to how it’s all presented.
@@lloyd.8272 yes it does but I am not buying setting speaker wire or any other wires for that on toys is going to make any difference in any of those things. To answer your question crosstalk, separation, reverberation and reflection and SNR and noise floor all can be measured and will effect our Psychoacoustic perception. Also placebo effect will effect how we perceive sound. That is all I know but I am not an engineer either. 😊
Applied science upsets some people because it basically means that everything matters and everything makes a difference to some extent. Doesn't at all surprise me. Products made from drilled oil always have noticeably stronger negative electrically active properties. I'd be curious if an unbleached undyed untreated cotton or linen blanket/mat in between the wire and the floor would make a noticeable difference, since it's probably the artificial carpet in your room causing the issue with the wire. Hardwood floors might be better but even those have a plastic coating.
Where is the science here? Any controlled listening tests? Any measurements? This isn't science...that would require evidence, not just silly, silly claims. Course, this place hasn't got a lot to do with actual evidence does it...
You may be on to something there. Of all of the rope cores we've used in the middle of the speaker cables the unbleached natural cotton has the best sound, or has the least negative effect on the sound.
Mr. Research, In your experience, are the sonic results of the cable lifting phenomenon only applicable to speaker cables? Or, should all the cables in the system be lifted? Thank you.
Wire's capacitance can't be denied in higher voltages. We started using "medium" voltage, (3000 vac), wiring where I used to work and the wire would hold enough charge unplugged that it could kill you if you didn't remember to discharge by shorting it.
@@photobriangray When the guys were all here we were playing tracks from Jennifer Warnes, Norah Jones, Jack Johnson, Allison Kraus, and others. The differences were clear with anything.
Hum!!! Every thing I tried from Danny’s videos made a difference on the sound of my system… so I guess I’d better move cables that rides close coupled all along the baseboard radiator!
