I saw a commercial (Why do all my posts lately come from TV?) for the AMEX Plum Card. The featured company was a place called Music Direct. Out of curiosity, I checked their website. After all, I like audio gear.
I looked at the site and saw they carried both CDs and electronics. Both high-end. Cool!
Then I looked towards the bottom of the page, under “featured hardware” and saw these. At first, I thought they looked like old ceramic insulators, like you’d find on telegraph poles.
I was right. They were.
These ceramic insulators are supposed to be used to lift your speaker cables off the floor to “gain significant improvements in the sound of your audio or home theater system.” Just the thing to sell someone after you’ve sold them welding cable for speaker wire… [Wait, I just looked at their speaker cables, welding cable is cheaper!]
What a bunch of snake oil!
I’ll concede there is, in theory, benefit to using a larger-gauge wire for speakers. Lower resistance, lower inductance, etc. But they use theory to lighten the consumer’s wallet. And the amount of benefit gained vs. cost as you go to large and larger (and more and more expensive) wire is a case of diminishing returns. I’d defy anyone to prove they can hear the difference between anything larger than say a 12 gauge wire in an average home sound system.
That’s been a running debate for years. Monster Cables have made a business out of it.
But cable elevators? Does anyone buy into that? Really? I guess a sucker is born every minute, after all.
What scientific proof of these things making the least difference, much less an audible difference, is there? Unless you live on metal floors, how much difference can there be by lifting speaker wires off a wood, carpet, tile, linoleum or even concrete floor? It’s hooey! Besides, anyone spending that kind of money, wouldn’t leave the wires laying out on the floor, they’d be routed through the wall or under the floor.
Unless they wanted to show off their $160 ceramic cable elevators!
