With the Fog Lifters, cable specialist Audioquest offers an accessory that almost every music lover can use in their system. The Fog Lifters don't ruin anyone financially. How much sound improvement can you expect from them?

A few years ago, a good friend of mine carefully suspended all the power and signal cable connections of his elaborate system with six mono power amplifiers, all of which were placed on their granite bases on the floor and not in a rack, from the ceiling of the room with acrylic threads so that they would not rest on the carpet. When I visited him afterwards, I was amazed at the undoubtedly enormous gain in sound since my last visit. "What did you change?" was my first question then. "Nothing, I just removed the cables from the floor," he said with a slightly mischievous smile. Musically, this measure was undoubtedly a definite improvement, especially in terms of spatial depth and differentiation. I won't say anything about the visuals at this point, but perhaps you can picture it in your mind's eye. But lifting the cables from the ground also be done in a more beautiful way because the topic is by no means a new one. Some respectable manufacturers offer supports for power and audio cables, often made of acrylic or precious woods, which are supposed to improve the sound thanks to the material alone. So claims the marketing. I do not question the quality of such mostly high-priced solutions here and now.

This is where the Audioquest Fog Lifters come in. They are not made of precious wood, but of plastic. They are also not that expensive at 149 euros for eight pieces, if they keep what Audioquest promises. They have a technical advantage over all the upscale alternatives I know: Only a strong acrylic thread contacts the cable. Therefore, the contact surface is minimal, and the theory is implemented in the best possible way. The thread is 12.5 centimeters long and accommodates more than one cable if required.

My previous thoughts about power cables lying on the floor assume that all cables used in our set ups, no matter how elaborately designed and manufactured, are not entirely sealed units. Power cables radiate more or less of their alternating fields to their nearby environment, even when no current is flowing through them. This leads to irregularities, especially when these electric field lines do not form uniformly around the cable. They are reflected, creating an unstable environment, and the cable itself is, therefore, in an irregular aura. Proximity to the signal-carrying cables disturbs them, either when crossing them or running in parallel. It is an unwritten law not to bundle cables for the sake of appearance. On vibrating surfaces such as wooden floors, cables can also experience unwanted excitation due to structure-borne sound or resonance.