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I've been using various cable lifters for the past 8 years or so.
Recently I've auditioned a few newer ones with good results.
However, I've noticed that the cable lifters' performance gains are not immediate and seem to take 24 - 48 hours min. to reach their full potential.
Now I'm probably the biggest believer in required electrical burn-in times and most definitely the biggest believer in mechanical settling in times. But I'm still a little shocked by recent experiences.
I've recently auditioned 2 types of cable lifters. One lifter is a hard material and the other is a soft material, yet the settling in times seem roughly the same which implies to me that it's the cables settling in, not the lifters.
Anyway, just wondering if others noticed this settling in time.
Follow Ups:
In analyzing the change and the time factor, one thing remains certain, it ain't the actual wire which is changing. Rather, it is the interaction of the wire with the insulation, at least in my thinking (FWIW and YMMV and all that jazz)....
The actual signal carrying wire emits an EMF field and while it decreases with the square of the distance, the actual field can extend quite far. The big problem is that, in terms of human perception, we have no idea of how a numerical measurement (if indeed, it is the measurement we want) correlates to human hearing. Some people will be sensitive to it, and others, well, you red them before: its all in your mind and do you have any measurements to back what you hear....
A prominent cable designer once told me there are really only three parameters we can measure in regards to cable; Resistance, Inductance and Capacitance. Same cable, so resistance is the unchanged. So the parameters being changed must influence the other two factors. The magnetic and electrical field is penetrating the lifters, and the different materials must have different effects.
On the other hand, a softer material may be dampening the original cable better mechanically and of course this actually can affect the two remaining parameters (strands vbrating in respect to one another). Of course there may be other factors also in play
YMMV and FWIW
You said, "On the other hand, a softer material may be dampening the original cable better mechanically and of course this actually can affect the two remaining parameters (strands vbrating in respect to one another). Of course there may be other factors also in play."Well said. I perceive tho art an intelligent man as that is pretty much what I was thinking when last weekend I generated my own lifters. Took about 2.5 days to settle in.
These are made from acoustic foam squares I had in storage. Even though I consider isolation methodologies evil and damping in many circumstances the poor man's attempt to isolate, damping does its place, namely I know you're going to vibrate but I don't want you doing here, hence the damping of my DIY lifters is intended primarily to minimize the cables minute vibrations as well as help keep the cables from vibrating in sympathy with the vibrations already generated/captured within.
Anyway, I've attached a pic with my Audio Teknes buried within. The girth of the Teknes is smaller than a pencil. Used box cutters and straight edge to make the half inch slits in the foam.
Edits: 10/08/14
I don't want to believe it but I've noticed that anytime I move my cables - whether interconnect, speaker cable or even power cords - it takes time before the system sounds its best again. The better my system becomes, the more noticeable this oddity.
John is correct.....if you move the cables they need to settle in again. In MY system I have never found cable lifters to make any difference at all. Maybe if you have carpet...I have Travertine tile floors ....no difference.
Thanks for the reminder.
For me it has been cable dependent. For ic's, my old Audio Teknes were vulernable to movement and could take a 1 1/2 days or more to resettle. But I sold those ic's about 5 years. My other 3 or 4 ic brands seem to only take an hour or 2 to resettle.
Speaker cables I've less experience with. About 8 years ago, I noticed an immediate clearing up when lifting those cables (whatever they were) off the ground, but no longer term gains and that was in my old listening room with different carpet.
I've now been using the same Audio Tekne speaker cables for the past 7 or 8 years (full-immersion cryo treatment) and I've not noticed much difference with them and some BPT speaker cables when using some ceramic cable lifters from Italy. In newer this room, the new carpet is anti-static if that actually counts for anything.
But I've just been auditioning some highly rated cable lifters I recently purchased and I was a bit surprised at the level of improvements over a few days time. Then this weekend I made my own that I've been wanting to try and even better gains still. My home grown versions actually bury the small girth bi-wire speaker cables so they run parallel to each other inside the somewhat firm-fitting material.
Power cables - not much experimentation there since my line conditioners come with built-in power cables and very rarely move. But just last week I built a small custom rack behind my main custom rack primarily to lift my line conditioners about 6 inches off the carpet, which added just a little but nice clarity gain. I was hoping for more but at least the gain was audible.
So at this juncture all power cables, line conditioners, and speaker cables are lifted. And now I need to consider my ic's to see if I can try something reasonable there.
I'm entirely committed to proper vibraiton management at the component and racking system and sub-flooring system levels. But I never gave much thought to cables until a few months back I stumbled across a video showing how power cables visibly vibrated when a charge was sent through them.
Quite visible actually. Hence, my recent desire to experiment a bit.
And you've reminded me...
that when I got my power conditioner off the floor and onto a rack, the improvement in clarity was so pronounced that I truly laughed out loud.
That's good to hear. With my Foundation Research line conditioners I've heard just a barely audible improvement, clarity actually. If a 5% improvement is barely audible, then this improvement was no more than 5%.
Like cables, I'm sure the results differ based on a number of factors e.g. LC mfg'er, carpet, etc. I'm floating the ground at my LC's too so perhaps there's a difference there. Then of course my LC's are mounted on a steel stand with steel points plunging through the carpet and pad, hence the LC's may not be quite so far removed from static electricity as I think. But if that were the case, then I'd have the same issues at my rack with my components where everything is TIGHTLY coupled together via metal that freely conducts electrical charges.
I personally have never heard any difference from raising the cables off my wood floor with wooden lifters.
That was with my analog system that consisted of an MMF-5 TT, a Radio Shack "Little Rat", Bottlehead Paramour 2A3 monoblocks and Horneshoppe Horns. The cables at that time were DIY CAT5 speaker cables terminated with banana plugs (no solder) and I think the interconnects back then were all Monster but I don't remember which exact ones they were.
It may be that my system wasn't good enough to benefit from the lifters?
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