WayneWilmeth wrote: Not too much interest in cable lifters, but many here believe in aftermarket power cables. Others of course believe those are snake oil.
I have discovered this awesome cellist, Maya Fridman, who records with the TRPTK label, an amazing label IMHO.
They not only use the best of DSD recording techniques, and tube microphone and go for the best equipment too, according to their blog, they even use the best cable. So in conjunction with Furutech they put this on the net, they recorded Maya playing using just ordinary power cables and then their own Furutech cables.
And let you hear both recordings in a coupla different resolutions to see if you can hear the difference. Of course, they all can, here you go:
www.furutech.com/2017/08/22/15425/

Beautiful music, enjoy and tell us, can you hear the difference????
God Bless,
Wayne

Hi, Wayne

I played the recordings, first on my SONY headphones, then streamed to the GEt's. In both cases, the recordings done with the Furutech cables sounded more richly nuanced, natural, musical. I don't know enough about the experiment in terms of how identical each of the recording sessions was to eliminate other variables, but the added sense of naturalness, being there, resonates with me. That is exactly what the AntiCable Reference 3 power cords do for my system when plugged into the OPPO player and Marantz receiver .

I remain a believer in what power cords can do to improve sound. And different power cords do sound different on the same component (love what the AntiCable does for the Marantz SQ, didn't much like what a Shunyata Venom 3 did on that component, but the same Venom 3's sound great on T2's or T1's, so YMMV, even by component). Have no experience with Furutech cables, so can't speak to any personal experiences with them. Do love what aftermarket power cords have done for my system though.

Keep us on our toes and thinking, Wayne!!

Rick

OK, my two cents on cable lifters (elevators).

Yes, I have heard a significant difference with and without lifters, but not always.

I'm using Morrow Elite speaker cables, and these are unusual in that there are separate cables for the positive and negative sides of the hookup. Since the current flows in one direction in each cable, there is no magnetic field cancellation away from the cable like there is when positive and negative conductors are bundled together.

That said, my original flooring was carpet over pad over strainboard subfloor. I tried some lifters the El Cheapo way: I bought a $10 bag of 16 oz hot drink paper cups from Amazon. Why spend more for an experiment? These cups lift the cables about 5 inches off the floor.

I could NOT hear a difference between having the cables on the carpet versus having them lifted. I switched back and forth several times and took my time making a judgement. So much for that, I thought.

Then the fun began. I replaced the flooring in my listening room with laminate flooring. I put my audio system back together with the cables on the flooring, and I gave them time to get over their moving trauma and then started serious listening.

At first they sounded fine, but then, over a period of a couple of weeks, I thought the imaging was getting less precise. That's odd, I thought. It must be me. I gave it more time and the imaging got worse and worse. Finally, it was unlistenable.

So, out of desperation, I put back the cups and elevated the cables. (Had to try something.) The difference was NIGHT AND DAY! The imaging snapped back into focus and the sound was better.

What happened here? My current theory is that the floor acted as a dielectric that somehow changed the signal in the cable. It sounded like the reverse of cable break in. Maybe those hefty external magnetic fields were part of the story. The carpet and padding had a lot of air, so the cables on carpet were partly lifted already. With the laminate flooring, the cables were in intimate contact.

So now my cables are elevated and will remain so, thank you very much.

I think the bottom line here is that cable elevators CAN make a difference, but how much will depend on 1) your cables, and 2) your flooring. If you want to try it, it's easy and cheap to try the cup routine.

Charlie

WOW Charlie, that is seriously very interesting!
Surprising, but I can see how flooring would have to make a difference, and your cables are quite likely a big part of it too.
Live and learn.
Are you staying with the cups? or getting better lifters?
God Bless,
Wayne

WayneWilmeth wrote: Are you staying with the cups? or getting better lifters?

I got some brown spray paint at a craft store and made the cups brown, to sorta match my floor color. Problem solved!

Cool Charlie!!!!
I will search Morrow cables to know what you mean.
What do you mean by laminate flooring? Just trying to figure out what kind of electrical properties that might introduce?
God Bless,
Wayne

It's also called vinyl plank flooring. Looks like wood flooring. The top layer of mine is aluminum oxide for wear, but underneath I think it's vinyl. So insulators all.

I saved so much money on my elevators that I was able to by my TRefs.