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1: Agree. The best lifters couple the cable to the subfloor. (8.55)
Posted by Al Sekela on 2008-01-31, 13:39:03 (70.231.135.29)
Anything resting casually on top of carpet will vibrate freely. This is why most racks and stands have spiked feet for use on carpeted floors. Lifters that can bite into the carpet pile will offer mor .......
2: Oil absorbant; Dynamat on cable lifters. (8.55)
Posted by Al Sekela on 2004-03-30, 14:38:34 (66.126.229.164)
Well, we use the fancy kitty litter for the rat cage. I have a partial bag of oil absorbant that resembles kitty litter, but is too dusty to use with our pets. It is fairly light-weight compared to sa .......
3: Important to provide steady support. (7.67)
Posted by Al Sekela on 2009-10-16, 15:30:49 (76.191.156.247)
Lifters should not wobble on the carpet. The cables should be treated like audio components for steady support. The lifters I use are cylinders made of stiff paper (not cardboard) so that the sharp ed .......
4: Avoid adding sonic character through the lifters. (6.83)
Posted by Al Sekela on 2007-03-04, 20:17:58 (71.131.178.114)
Anything that has a tone when tapped is bad to use for lifting cables. I had this happen to me when I experimented with glass prisms on wood blocks. My advice is to make cylinders out of stiff paper s .......
5: Static-dissipative foam is available. (6.46)
Posted by Al Sekela on 2009-09-19, 14:45:17 (76.191.156.247)
Semiconductor devices sensitive to electrostatic discharge (esd) are shipped in plastic foam with some degree of conductivity to prevent the build-up of static. The link shows one company that sells t .......
6: Repost my recipe. (6.46)
Posted by Al Sekela on 2005-12-03, 14:21:54 (71.131.203.89)
Yes, I use them. In my system, they allow better bass clarity. The ones I use are based on a suggestion from Don Palmer and have some of my own refinements built in. They are very cheap to make, so yo .......
7: I've no idea what microphone distortion is either, (6.45)
Posted by Al Sekela on 2005-06-04, 18:17:59 (66.123.170.135)
and am just guessing that BOB is acting as a high-frequency damper for the speaker and cable, similar to the Walker High Definition Links. I took one of these apart and checked the self-resonance freq .......
8: Too thick! (6.36)
Posted by Al Sekela on 2005-04-17, 13:36:57 (66.123.169.170)
Damping is a challenge if the object to be damped is stiff and thick. The Teflon tape trick works on 80lb cover stock because the paper is thin and couples well to a few wraps of the tape. The other p .......
9: Excellent advice! (6.18)
Posted by Al Sekela on 2005-04-16, 13:53:33 (66.123.169.170)
I get confused when I make two changes at the same time! Good answers from Bart about the techniques. Let me add a little more. My first set of lifters from the heavy paper came from some sheets of 80 .......
10: Agree. (5.81)
Posted by Al Sekela on 2005-09-25, 15:11:14 (71.131.194.19)
Part of my tweaking for more resolution was to experiment with cable lifters. I found that making them out of stiff paper and wrapping them with Teflon thread-seal tape reduces their acoustic signatur .......
11: DIY roller balls on struts; stiff paper cable lifters. (5.60)
Posted by Al Sekela on 2005-04-15, 08:02:15 (66.123.169.170)
For my Wadia 861, InnerSound ESL-300 bass amp, and Atma-Sphere MA-1 mid/treble amps. I gave up on trying the damp the shelves for my Lovan racks, so after I treated the frames, I made some beams from .......
12: Vibration isolation; dielectric interaction. (5.57)
Posted by Al Sekela on 2008-01-30, 13:46:08 (70.231.135.29)
I think the main benefit of proper lifters is to minimize the cable vibration. The cables may be flexible for side-to-side motion, but are very stiff for end-to-end motion. This allows them to couple .......
13: Not as cheap as my paper cylinders... (5.46)
Posted by Al Sekela on 2006-08-15, 20:39:21 (71.131.216.177)
And probably not as quiet. If you can hear any tone in the response of the lifters to being tapped, then they are affecting your audio signal. I found this out the hard way. .......
14: Elevators need to be acoustically quiet, first of all. (5.37)
Posted by Al Sekela on 2007-12-31, 13:39:15 (71.141.230.162)
Porcelain insulators used for overhead power lines ring when tapped, and they do not rest firmly on carpet unless you attach spikes. Any acoustic resonance in the lifters will affect the sound, in my .......
15: My experiences. (5.37)
Posted by Al Sekela on 2005-03-22, 11:06:32 (66.126.231.55)
Lifting my speaker cables from Nylon carpet made a big improvement in the resolution, especially of acoustic bass instruments at the rear of the performance space. I started with ceramic tile pieces ( .......
16: Beware of resonances in the lifters. (5.25)
Posted by Al Sekela on 2004-12-11, 11:29:46 (66.126.230.218)
I used ceramic tile pieces, which lifted my Silver Audio speaker cables less than an inch. The effect with Nylon carpet was sufficient to produce astonishment when I demonstrated it for the cable desi .......
17: Now let us know how it works without the ground-lifters. (5.09)
Posted by Al Sekela on 2006-06-29, 15:39:04 (71.131.239.87)
Also, you may want to experiment with chokes in place of or in addition to the resistors, if room inside the amps permits. The right choke will further reduce background noise coming through this path .......
18: DIY damping in power cords. (4.90)
Posted by Al Sekela on 2007-09-22, 15:10:53 (71.141.235.161)
Sorry for not seeing your request for a few days. My power cords are tweaked Volex 17604 (Mexican source). Among the tweaks that make them perform well is application of Power Wraps to damp the magnet .......
19: At least they aren't blue! (4.82)
Posted by Al Sekela on 2008-01-31, 13:42:27 (70.231.135.29)
My wife objected violently to the bright blue color of Power Wraps when I first put them on some cables. Since then, I've covered them with cotton batting and the complaints are much reduced. Gold col .......
20: Speaker placement first, then lift the cables (4.63)
Posted by Al Sekela on 2004-07-10, 14:56:43 (64.171.5.143)
Allowing some speaker cables to rest upon synthetic carpet, wood, or laminate floors can diminish the sense of focus you want. I suggest trying lifters under them once you get the speakers in place, t .......
21: Vibration reduction (4.54)
Posted by Al Sekela on 2006-05-24, 14:05:21 (71.131.253.198)
There may or may not be any dielectric effect with brick flooring, but it is generally a bad idea to let any audio component rest casually upon something hard. This includes cables. If the cable jacke .......
22: Do your cables and power cords rest upon the floor? (4.53)
Posted by Al Sekela on 2008-08-03, 17:04:14 (76.191.156.247)
Dissipating static charges on carpet near the cables, by rubbing with dryer sheets (not recommended!) or misting with water, has been reported to give similar but temporary sonic improvements. An alte .......
23: Probably similar plastics but different approvals. (4.39)
Posted by Al Sekela on 2005-12-06, 08:48:21 (71.131.203.89)
All these parts should have passed some sort of UL or similar agency approval. The different purposes would entail different sorts of tests. This does not explain a difference in price, just how it c .......
24: I'm not sure the Shunyata conductive foam is all that expensive. (4.14)
Posted by Al Sekela on 2008-03-06, 15:49:19 (70.231.151.238)
Conductive foam has been used for years to ship semiconductor devices sensistive to electrostatic discharge. IME, cable lifters should have benign dielectric properties (leaky is OK if the underlying .......
25: Two more items... (4.10)
Posted by Al Sekela on 2008-09-16, 12:40:58 (76.191.156.247)
First, be sure your speaker cables and power cords are lifted from the wood floor. You can make simple and cheap lifters to check this. Wires that rest upon the floor may give the bloated, thickened b .......
26: That's my conclusion as well. (4.06)
Posted by Al Sekela on 2009-12-04, 15:52:41 (76.191.156.247)
Consider that the cables or cords make firm mechanical contact with fittings that are not acoustically isolated on the audio equipment. Any vibration on the cable or cord gets into the equipment, no m .......
27: If you heard a change, (4.00)
Posted by Al Sekela on 2009-09-15, 15:04:39 (76.191.156.247)
then the tweak did something. My understanding is that it can only improve the electrical performance of the plug-outlet system. Dulling the high frequencies, to me, means that the tweak took away an .......
28: Relative improvements (3.85)
Posted by Al Sekela on 2004-11-12, 10:37:04 (67.123.181.14)
Unless we were at the recording session, we can't know for sure what the performance or mic feed sounded like. There are some well-made recordings that have good sound-stage information, but many comp .......
29: Details... (3.61)
Posted by Al Sekela on 2005-12-02, 10:17:26 (71.131.203.89)
Cable lifters can introduce brightness if they cause the cables to vibrate or have their own acoustic signature. I went through this issue with my system. My present best recipe for cheap and low-acou .......
30: I wouldn't. (3.49)
Posted by Al Sekela on 2005-02-01, 08:58:47 (66.123.169.250)
Before you undertake a lot of cutting (the stuff is difficult to cut), try a simple test. Listen to some music with acoustic bass and recorded in a natural environment. Now place the Corian pieces on .......
31: Undamped ceramic or glass adds treble coloration. (3.49)
Posted by Al Sekela on 2005-12-03, 14:59:14 (71.131.203.89)
Some unemployed coffee cups or mugs are great for the experiment to demonstrate how lifting cables may clarify the bass and sound-stage, but whatever is used to lift cables should not contribute its o .......
32: Teflon is a great idea! (3.45)
Posted by Al Sekela on 2004-07-03, 15:48:10 (64.171.5.143)
Teflon tape is sold to wrap around pipe threads in plumbing supply stores. It is inexpensive. You can braid three strands of tape to make a string, then braid three of these to make a cord that will s .......
33: Where shall I start? (3.43)
Posted by Al Sekela on 2005-03-15, 12:19:13 (66.126.231.55)
1. Take the pointy feet off a Wadia 861 and suspend it on roller-balls. DIY roller balls cost less than $10 total to make. 2. Take the rubber feet off an InnerSound ESL-300 and place it on a firm, non .......
34: When it comes to AC conditioners, sometimes more is less. (3.38)
Posted by Al Sekela on 2006-01-01, 08:45:21 (71.131.203.89)
The more stuff inside a conditioner, the more chances for mischief with the sound. This includes the obvious such as inductive filter components interacting with amp power supplies, as well as the les .......
35: Also try lifting your speaker cables. (3.09)
Posted by Al Sekela on 2005-06-12, 14:23:48 (66.123.170.135)
Just as an experiment. You can use paper cylinders made from the heavy paper sold in crafts stores and held together with transparent tape. If this helps, you can make permanent ones with some white g .......
36: I don't know. (3.05)
Posted by Al Sekela on 2005-03-23, 09:46:38 (66.126.231.55)
I've heard the effects of wire with PVC insulation compared to wire with Teflon insulation, and it is clear that at least some forms of PVC-insulated wire sound like undigested broccoli, if you get my .......
37: Dielectrics are a matter of sonic taste. (2.99)
Posted by Al Sekela on 2010-02-21, 15:52:19 (76.191.156.247)
Damping the binding posts would reduce vibrations conducted from the speakers into the amps by the speaker cables. Cables may be more or less flexible for side-to-side motion, but are very stiff for m .......
38: Get a good notion of your system's strengths and weaknesses first. (2.83)
Posted by Al Sekela on 2006-03-02, 09:58:52 (71.132.5.184)
Speaker placement and room treatment are paramount as others have said. Solid support for the CD player and receiver are also important. Make sure the electrical connections in your system are clean a .......
39: A few thoughts... (2.13)
Posted by Al Sekela on 2005-12-01, 15:03:51 (71.131.203.89)
First, are you happy with your room treatments? Coherent first-reflections from the side walls can make Maggie tweeters sound too bright, as well as confused. I use Sonex foam panels to break up and a .......
Found total of 39 records, Query: lifters, Author: al sekela in Tweakers' Asylum, Time: 0 sec.