Cable Elevators

johndoe21ro

Well-Known Member
Oct 3, 2012
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Going forward, I'll be going with a combination of Furutech NCF & Acoustic Revive RCI-3H cable risers.
I'm anxious to hear your opinion about them!
 

Swann36

Member
Oct 10, 2020
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My cables are on the floor. They don't look neat and they gather a lot of dust. I ordered some elevators.

And did you find that the dust now missed the cables and elevators and only collected on the floor now ?
 

JackD201

WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
12,308
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Manila, Philippines
And did you find that the dust now missed the cables and elevators and only collected on the floor now ?

Yes mostly. Also less dust bunnies. Much easier to vacuum with a small nozzle attachment.
 

Chops

Well-Known Member
Apr 27, 2016
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Central Florida
My cable insulators were MIA after the move a year and a half ago. I just ran across them yesterday while going through some boxes. Since we have nothing but hardwood floors throughout the house and tile in the kitchen, laundry room and bathroom, and six cats, there's plenty of dust bunnies to go around, a lot of which get tangled up in the speaker cables. So I decided to put these isolators back in use.

Yup, still no change in sound, but much easier to clean around and again, cool looking. Plus it's cool to know that some of the ones I have date back almost 100 years. They match the one on the power pole in our back yard, and I can guarantee you there's no dust bunnies on that one for sure! :p:cool:



With one of the dust bunny makers right in the middle of the pic... LOL




 

brad225

VIP/Donor
Nov 22, 2012
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I was killing time in my shop this last weekend while repairing a rocker for my grand nephew. In between waiting for glue to dry on the rocker I decided to finish make cable lifters I started a while ago.

They are very simple. Scraps of mahogany and a screw to hold the base to the vertical.
You can make them any size you like. In all of these I probably have $5-10 total.

I don't notice any change in sound but I like being able to be sure all cables are separated from one another.
NglGlQkwT0S0pTOLjlffCg.jpg rfU7hs%AQeGVLgWbmaBN8A.jpg
 

Chops

Well-Known Member
Apr 27, 2016
876
850
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Central Florida
I don't notice any change in sound but I like being able to be sure all cables are separated from one another.

And if you can't hear any difference with them with that system and room of yours, you know darn well that cable risers do nothing at all for sound. They're just for looks, convenience for cleaning and organization of the cables. Plain and simple.

Curious, what are those speaker cables you're running to your CLX's? I'm thinking of going with a slightly smaller gauge cable for my SL3's. Many thanks in advance and a spectacular system you have there!
 

LL21

Well-Known Member
Dec 26, 2010
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If Bernie Grundman uses them, you KNOW they work! :rolleyes:
Which ones does he use? Do you use them? If Bruce B uses, you DEFINITELY KNOW they work! ;)

I just got 2 Furutech NCF Boosters. Insanely expensive, and I definitely was not looking for a sound improvement. The cables are SO heavy and SO high up, that it was getting a bit dangerous. We had a cable shift by 2 millimeters one nite and shut the whole system down with a huge bang. Properly plugged in, you could see the prongs because the cable sag was so great.

Now with the surprisingly well built Furutech, the 2 power cables are 99.5% in, solid and not moving. Because the Gryphon Mephisto also has 2 independent IECs (1 for each channel) and is also high (on top of Stillpoints Ultra 6s so nearly 9-10 inches off the ground), I've ordered 2 more.
 

Phillyb

Well-Known Member
May 31, 2012
152
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948
A very stable audio rack and amp stand is the way to go. Spikes and all the rest will change the sound like anything you put under any piece of gear or speakers, in fact, different spikes will sound different, footers the same of any make, there is always the new hot one, then you will see lots of sales of them down the road. You are trading one sonic signature for coloration of another, All manufactures of good gear voice their gear around the way it will sound when you purchase it. So to me that is the way it sounds, having a good solid rack and stands to support the gear helps, but then all stands have a sonic impact, so we chase our own tales while trying to retune our system to our liking.

I've learned to let the gear be as designed for use, work on my room acoustics, speaker setup, and sit back and enjoy the music. I once for the fun of it put 4 apples under my preamp, dam the sound changed, I had a good laugh, but that taught me a lesson about any footers or pucks, they all change the sound, but not always for the better. Bright is bright, thin bass that will sound quicker but it is still thin, or bloated bass slow, and lacking air, etc. A good room and a solid designed good power cord will do more than anything else you can spend your hard-earned money as far as tweaks, but if you like to tweak go for it. Also zero between the speakers, no racks or TV's, etc. Amp stand with the amp is fine, your rack should be away from the speakers if possible, even with a loft area I use for my system I could still set it up for the best sonics possible for what I had to work with. Phil Audio Room 3.jpg
 
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LL21

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Dec 26, 2010
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Interesting...what I can say is that good isolation has proven well worth it and lowered the noise floor to a level where with both the CJ GAT 2 preamp and now the Robert Koda K15EX (8db only of gain)...we can listen at the very lowest notch on the volume and hear all the details. We never got to this until after all of the isolation went into place, one piece of equipment at a time. The primary focus was always to ensure that as we placed each piece into its own isolation solution...the 'voice' of the component was maintained with only density of tone, clarity of detail being improved.

It took about 18 months to do it, 1 piece at a time and its been stable ever since.
 

Ron Resnick

Site Co-Owner, Administrator
Jan 24, 2015
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Beverly Hills, CA
Hello brad225,

Nice work on those cable supports!

How do you center precisely the vertical piece on the square base?

(Yes, this is a serious question. Other than eyeballing it, I literally would not know the woodworker's standard methodology for centering precisely the rectangular-ended vertical piece on the exact center of the square base. This also suggests why I am much better with a soldering iron than with a hammer.)
 
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brad225

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Nov 22, 2012
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Hello brad225,

Nice work on those cable supports!

How do you center precisely the vertical piece on the square base?

(Yes, this is a serious question. Other than eyeballing it, I literally would not know the woodworker's standard methodology for centering precisely the rectangular-ended vertical piece on the exact center of the square base. This also suggests why I am much better with a soldering iron than with a hammer.)

Ron, I just eyeball them and drill the hole for the screw for the vertical. A measurement and pencil mark would be easy if one is not comfortable with guessing.

The advantage of this design is you can make different heights to run one cable under another.

Relating to the Furutech NCF Boosters that LL21 mentioned. I made some the exact height to go under the cables plugged in to my Shunyata Hydra. Not as pretty but stopped the cables from drooping and coming loose.
 
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brad225

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Nov 22, 2012
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And if you can't hear any difference with them with that system and room of yours, you know darn well that cable risers do nothing at all for sound. They're just for looks, convenience for cleaning and organization of the cables. Plain and simple.

Curious, what are those speaker cables you're running to your CLX's? I'm thinking of going with a slightly smaller gauge cable for my SL3's. Many thanks in advance and a spectacular system you have there!

I'm not sure I would go as far as to say that cable risers don't do anything for anyone. It's possible mine don't work well enough or I can't hear it.

The speaker cables are DIY. I have used Shunyata Andromeda speaker cables for 10+ years. My EE friend gave me a pair he made to try and the difference was surprising. I had planed on not liking them as I have always been a Shunyata fan.
Deeper wider image. More precis detail and better bass.

Each cable is 4-13 Ga. PCOCC single crystal cast copper wires. They are carefully twisted to form a quad star configuration. Then wrapped with a heavy non abrasive tape. Then twist the ends into 2 sets of 2 wires and tinned with solder to hold them together. I terminated mine with
Furutech FT-211 Gold Spades. The cable ends up being between 10-11Ga when finished.

You can purchase the wire direct from the manufacturer Vanguard in China. It can be found on EBAY. They call it OCC but on their website it is the cable Professor Ohno created at the Chiba Institute.
 
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Phillyb

Well-Known Member
May 31, 2012
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Interesting...what I can say is that good isolation has proven well worth it and lowered the noise floor to a level where with both the CJ GAT 2 preamp and now the Robert Koda K15EX (8db only of gain)...we can listen at the very lowest notch on the volume and hear all the details. We never got to this until after all of the isolation went into place, one piece of equipment at a time. The primary focus was always to ensure that as we placed each piece into its own isolation solution...the 'voice' of the component was maintained with only density of tone, clarity of detail being improved.

It took about 18 months to do it, 1 piece at a time and it's been stable ever since.
Glad it all worked out for you and that you are enjoying it.
 

Mikem53

Well-Known Member
Oct 1, 2020
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95B6DC7B-D24B-48D5-97EF-7B3FF5830537.jpeg
I used to use these ceramic power line insulators I had purchased on eBay many years ago.. I didnt notice any difference, but they looked cool and kept the shotgunned cables tidy..
I used to shoot at those ceramic power line insulators when I was being a kid out in the boondocks..
 
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Pacha

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Apr 23, 2014
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To set the record straight, I have never heard a difference in these products. I would use them only because my anal retentive factor is off the charts. In fact, I am a BlueJeans Cable guy.

But what I found fascinating is this quote by Jonathan Valin, not that he liked them (not a surprise) but rather that he considered himself a "skeptic", he who happens to be the President of the Speaker of the Nanosecond Club: "The damn things do lower noise, increase dynamics, remove haze, and open up the top octaves. Once you listen to their effects, even a skeptic like me has to admit that it is hard to take them back out of the system. Music sounds more like music with the Cable Elevators in place. I recommend them strongly, especially given their price!"

- Jonathan Valin, The Absolute Sound, Editor's Choice Award Winners
My partner's Mom lives in KS and powerline insulators can be found cheep there, couple of dollars a piece. I use the ones she has brought back for me in my system and to me it does seem to reduce the noise floor a bit. They look better than the cables all over the place as well! DSC_1884.jpeg
 

Mikem53

Well-Known Member
Oct 1, 2020
662
581
105
So I spent sometime today and searched the garage for my power line insulators..
success.. I guess.. but I did rearrange the room around my insulators for the better..
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A3EFD6B5-7280-4948-96F2-9B79C743350C.jpeg
 

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