Cable Lifters

I just dont know If I have enough of a belief system to try them.

I know that there is a very loose scientific reason given for their supposed use but I just dont know

There is no reason why they would, or could make any audible difference at all. I've actually measured, using very sensitive measuring kit, effects on core cable properties such as capacitance and inductance and the results of any differences at all, let alone meaningful ones, were at a level so FAR BELOW program threshold as to be completely and utterly meaningless and inaudible. Meaningless, that is, except to those snake oil merchants who love to mislead the public by showing "live" test results on an oscilloscope (using units of measurement not understood by those watching, let alone meaningful in any way) to prove their sales pitches. That video is a prime example of snake oil at its finest,..cables on lifters to demonstrate.....what exactly?  I'd be more concerned that they form a trip hazard than anything else! You can wind up any number of measurements and affect how they show up as the very tiniest and wholly inaudible of distortions to make a point, but the dishonesty is laid bare only when you know what they are measuring and just how skewed their sales pitch presentation of their facts are,

Often, they screw up sensitivity so far on measurement to make the results look important when in reality they are completely meaningless. The same people also love to mislead others by making claims that induced vibrations in long speaker cables degrade sound without ever evidencing 1) that there is any meaningful vibration induced into the jacketed and damped wires and 2) that even if there were, there's absolutely no evidence anywhere (really) suggesting that they have any impact at all on the relatively large signal from your amp. Think about this for a second before jumping straight back in, then answer this question:

Q1. What is your signal carried through in a loudspeaker drive unit?

Q2. Does this conductor vibrate?

The silliness of marketing claims are laid bare when you consider that the very heart of the thing responsible as the final link in your chain, the speaker itself, relies upon a voicecoil containing many metres of thin wire, wrapped into a coil, with loose ends connected to the cone on one front and back to input terminals on the other, are all vibrated back and forth throughout the audio frequency band.

As for interconnects, same thing applies. It's nonsense, Any capacitance changes are meaningless over such relatively short distances for all line level sources and indeed for all MM pick ups to phonostage sources. It's bunkum (sorry for the non-technical term!).

Not everyone working in a recording studio is an expert electronics engineer...in fact very few are. Those that like to use this stuff are either sponsored to believe they might make a difference through nothing more than they believe it. Meaningful evidence doesn't get a look-in or come into it.

Its total bollocks.

My favourite is anyone making claims for mains cables with 'dampers' improving the sound. Totally ignoring the fact that mains cable are terminated at the transformer which will be vibrating at 100hz at a higher amplitude that any other wire in your hifi.


What benefit could there possibly be of damping a cable at a point at which it isnt vibrating and utterly ignoring the point at which it is vibrating... it's just idiocy.

Waiting for the usual Martin and Simon comments, it's just like being at work!

For what its worth I am not suggesting for for one moment these work, however Paul mentioned he has performed some basic LCR meas on cables. I am playing devils advocate here.

Paul did you actually measure reflectivity of the cables at all? while they we on the floor or suspended (lol).

Did you also have time to look at any radiated emission patterns before and after raising the risers (lol)

You do realise it is possible to actually charge a cable without it being connected at either end?

During our test procedures we have to pay care attention to static build up which genuinely can destroy text equipment and test rigs.

Please do carry on I need cheering up this afternoon still trying to recover from the rabbits passing

Hi Paul

Not being an audio engineer worth his salt I can ask these questions which are genuine, from a fully qualified electronic design engineer point of view who likes to see some hard facts.

Its quite interesting when you look at cable geometry as to how the various parameters effect the resultant outcomes, not difficult to construct a test port to run between the speaker cable placement and cite a VNA/SCA and perform some S parameter testing

Taking care to remove the test port from the finial equation I am sure it would be of interest to see before and after smith chart and finally put an end to the absurd notion of cable risers.

This way you have qualified proof of non compliance or bullshit delete as appropriate.

So please do descend from the high horse as I understand your feelings and agree with them. Though in my short life I just laugh and smile more at the audio bullshit factories that churn out unsubstantiated dross on a regular basis.

For shits and giggles I one epoxied the small cammed motor from my broken old nokia phone to a piece of gaffer tape stuck to the bottom of my Young dac. Fed it 2v and let it run. Compared the output in diffmaker to the same file being played without. The difference was below the level of experimental error, ie no more different than two subsequent samples without the motor running.

Exactly as I'd expect for a Ss device, to be fair i would have liked to try a jitter test, but didnt have the required test gear.

It's just bollocks, like applying analogue thinking to digital system and mechanical thinking to electronics.

I have no doubt that's possible to measure the effects of coiling cables, lazy dressing and so forth on the cables, but we all know in all but pathological broken setups that these are several orders of magnitude below audibility.

There are some 'foo' things that I have personally heard make a difference to the sound. Things that one has no reasonable or logical explanation of how they work.

Cable lifters aren't one of them though.

Agreed.

I have used cable lifters myself and am not convinced they make any difference at all that is audible. I just though it was interesting that some studios used them, maybe they have been sucked into the theory that they can make a difference or maybe they have heard the difference?

If you use tall enough ones Andy and put them close to radiators you can dry your socks on them too. They must work or those boffins at the National grid wouldn't be using them to distribute 33KV power lines...O.K.  I take it back.  Cable lifters work really well at...err...holding cables off the ground 

I'm mystified why someone like Bernie Grundman would be using these. I guess he was given some to try out but in a studio that is a trip hazard (Fremer fell over them LOL). Cables should be run under a mat if they cross the floor. I can't see anything in them apart from helping to keep cables separated and avoid crossovers and tangle. You could make your own wooden risers for pence and see if you can hear a difference if you are curious. The ones on sale are a major rip off. I doubt anyone other than Grundman would use them - maybe Steve Hoffman (who is into a lot of snake oil in my view)?  I'm sure Grundman cuts don't sound great because of those risers!

Personally I don't care that people sell this stuff or that people buy it. people buy a lot of pointless tat, that's always going to be the case so there's no point crusading.

And the people selling it are either as deluded as the customers or are simply operating on the 'One born every minute' principle, again that's always going to happen as long as there are people in the world.


It's only when people come out with crap like 'You haven't tried it so you're in no position to comment' that I lose patience.

I mean I haven't tried jumping off the roof of my house either but I'm still 100% certain that if I did I would break my legs.