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Dielectric first, then vibration...

I learned of this tweak from Don Palmer, maker of Highwire Power Wraps. He recommended using ceramic wall tile pieces such as quarter-round and bull-nose, that would lift the cables by about half to three-quarters of an inch, as further lifting did not seem to him to add any benefit, and the pieces are available at any home improvement store for less than a dollar each.

Friends of mine with wool carpets report no apparent benefit from lifting speaker cables.

My experiments with lifting from synthetic carpet over plywood by supporting the cables with the ceramic tile pieces stood on end confirm Don's advice: there does not seem to be as much benefit from lifting by several inches compared to lifting the same cables from the same carpet with the same pieces by less than an inch.

Speculation: the floor is a velocity null for sound wave air motion. Sound waves in the room will move the cables more, and possibly affect the perceived sound, if the cables are lifted further from the floor. However, the floor covering becomes part of the cable dielectric when the cables rest on the floor. If the floor covering is a poor dielectric (wood, Pergo-type laminate, or synthetic carpet), this also might affect the perceived sound by participating in the storage and release of electric field energy in the speaker cable operation. There is a compromise lifting height that minimizes the total degradation from dielectric participation and airborn vibration, and that height is closer to an inch than it is six inches.

A measurement that would reveal the effect of dielectrics in proximity to speaker cables would be a three-dimensional plot of capacitance as a function of signal level and frequency. I have no idea if instruments that could do this over the signal level range of interest exist.

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