Shunyata's Dark Field Suspension System and Dark Field Minis

Puma Cat

Puma Cat

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 5, 2013
Messages
2,525
Location
East Bay, CA
NOTE: Long post follows

I've been familiar with the claims for cable elevators improving the quality of your audio system, but this year I experienced first-hand the impact of Shunyata's Dark Field Suspension System and most recently, the cool little Dark Field Minis in a number of interesting ways.

I had read Caelin's patents on the Shunyata's Dark Field suspension system some years ago, but, at the time, I remained "scientifically skeptical" about their impact, or more accurately, the magnitude of the impact they would have.

And...I didn't know until quite recently that they're also very effective with power cords as well.

The backstory:

Back in 2020, when the Omega XC power cord was sent to me for product photography when their regular photographer wasn't available due to lockdown, a box of three DF-SS cable suspension elevators was included. When I inquired about why these were in the box, I was told the DF-SS elevators also provided a notable improvement when used with power cords, and set of 3 DF-SS are sold included with each Omega-class power cable. That was news to me at the time, as I had not heard about the benefits of using cable elevators for power cables. Speaker cables? Possibly yes, but PCs? 🤔

After doing the product photography, I put the Omega XC into the system, and per recommendations, placed it on the DF-SS cable elevators, let it settle, and then listened to it for a couple weeks to provide some feedback on it's performance when powering Everest. I then shipped the Omega XC back to Shunyata.

A week or so later, when I was back behind the main rack, fiddling with connections, I realized that I'd inadvertantly forgotten to also send the DF-SS back when I returned the Omega XC, as they were under the rack, out of sight. Not thinking twice about it, I relocated them under the R channel loudspeaker cable. Here's a picture.

DF-SS.jpg


Some days later, when I fired up the stereo again, I noticed that the R speaker had increased clarity, depth, openness compared to the L speaker. Huh? What was going on? I started checking the cable connections, seating of all the tubes in the DAC, preamp, and amp, and couldn't find anything. Then, I saw that the R speaker's cables were sitting on the DF-SS cable elevators.

Well...that was interesting. I had been using some el-cheapo 3-D printed cable elevators from eBay under the speaker cables, but with the R channel speaker cable on the DF-SS, the R speaker sounded very clearly better than the Left speaker. Doing the "orthogonal experiment", I then moved the DF-SS under the L speaker cable. Now, the L channel speaker sounded better than the R channel, and in exactly the same way: increased clarity, depth, and openness. And, the improvement was very clearly audible; it was not one of those, "Am I really hearing some subtle but real improvements? I think so...." kinda things; it was....obvious.

And, I realized that a very good way to determine the impact of these was simply to put a set under just one channel, and then compare the two speakers, on exactly the same content and conditions, listening real-time.

Needless to say, there is set of these now under each speaker cable.

Cotinued in the next post.
 
Interesting. I remain to be convinced about cable elevators but then I have never tried them at home. Did you try and blind test just for fun? All off, all on, guess the side etc?
 
Howiebrou said:
Interesting. I remain to be convinced about cable elevators but then I have never tried them at home. Did you try and blind test just for fun? All off, all on, guess the side etc?
Click to expand...

If you read my post carefully, you'll note that it was, in effect, a blind test. I made a change to the system by placing the R channel speaker cable on a set of the DF-SS cable elevators when I found them sitting behind the rack. When I finally listened to the system some days later, and heard a notable audio quality improvement in the R channel; I didn't know why because I had forgotten I had placed the DF-SS units under the R channel SP. All I knew was....it very clearly sound better. It was only when I went through the system thoroughly and checked everything did I notice I had placed R SP cable on the DF-SS cable elevator. It was very easy to hear the difference when the cable elevators were only under the speaker cables for one channel. Then when I moved the cable elevators over to the other channel, I heard the improvement move to that channel.

This is why I recommend this as an effective method to hear the improvement these cable elevators bring. Put on some evenly balanced content (e.g. symphonic classical music, etc.). Put a set of the DF-SS cable elevators under just one channel, and listen to how each channel's speaker sounds. You'll hear the difference really easily. It's not subtle.
 
Okay...on to the next observation.

When I visited Shunyata Research along with some other folks in June, once of the objectives of the visit was to position and set up the Wilson Sasha DAWs for the Shunyata audio showroom. The system was comprised of Constellation amplification electronics: Centaur II monoblocks and Virgo III preamp. Source components were a VPI TT, a trio of DACs that were in for evaluation, and a Marantz SA-KI Ruby "Ken Ishiwata Edition" SACD/CD disk player. To keep things simple and controlled, we just started off by using the Marantz Ruby disc player as source (this is a KILLER disc player, BTW, so if you need a truly excellent disc player, give the Marantz Ruby a serious look).

To get started and orient ourselves, first we listened to the system with the mono blocks powered straight from the wall's dedicated AC receptacles with Shunyata Omega QR PCs. An Everest power distributor (powered from a wall receptacle by an Omega XC) provided power using an Omega QR-S PCs for the preamp and the Marantz disc player. Speaker cables and ICs were Sigma V2.

We first listened to the system with this set-up and it sounded quite good, especially given the fact we had done virtually no work in placing and and optimally positioning the speakers.

Caelin then had us put all the power cables onto the Shunyata DF-SS cable elevators.

Wow.

With all the PCs off the floor and suspended on the DF-SS cable elevators, the system sounded notably more open, transparent, and focused. This improvement was not subtle. Now, mind, I had previously experienced the improviements that putting the speaker cables had brought, but had never tried using the DF-SS for power cables...even though I had been told by Shunyata that it really benefitted power cables as well as speaker cables.

Here's a photo of the setup with most of the PCs on the DF-SS and DF-E "Minis" cable elevators (more on these in the next post).

Shunyata%20PCs%20and%20cable%20elevators.jpg

(note: the amp in the photo is the Constellation Centaur stereo amp used for powering the Wilson subs. It was placed shortly after this pic on it's nearby amp stand).

Well, I had heard the improvements first-hand for myself, and what surprised me was the magnitude of the improvement from elevating the power cables off the floor made to the system. It was NOT subtle.

Moreover, we also went through and used the Shunyata DF-E "Minis" cable elevators for additional support under longer runs of PCs and also to keep ICs and signal cables positioned away from each other and also power cables. In these applications, they are quite useful, and also very stable in the positions they were placed in, e.g. when keeping cables separated.

Here's a pic of DF-E Minis shown separating different types of cables from one another, e.g. ICs from PCs. Even separating them a little bit makes a notable difference. You'll also note that different cable types, when they cross one another, cross at 90° angles.

Cable%20Elevators%202.jpg


Bottom-line: if I hadn't heard the improvements (and the degree of improvement) for myself, I wouldn't have believed it.

With that in mind, I purchased a box of the Dark Field Minis to try under my own cables at home. Next post will describe this set-up.
 
Once I was back home, I set my PCs behind my rack up on the Dark Field Minis. Here's a pic showing them under the PCs. Some parts of the PC's that contact the floor are resting on A/V Roomservice's CVP (cable vibration protectors), which do the same thing as the Dark Field Minis, but do not elevate the cable off the floor.

IMG_5711%202.JPG


And sure enough, when I listened to my system with the PCs supported by the Dark Field Minis or the CVPs, the soundstage opened up, was more transparent with improved focus.

In conclusion, the reason it took me so long to try these enhancements to the system was...I was skeptical that they would result in any real, practical and consistent improvement. The fact they do result in an clear and consistent improvement in audio quality was notable, and more to the point, the degree of improvement they bring was even more of a (very pleasant) surprise.

I know some folks will still be skeptical. I get it, I was, too. But the Shunyata Dark Field Minis are inexpensive, a box of 12 only costs 100 bucks. My recommendation? Buy a box and do your own experiments. If you obtain the improvements I did, you can decide if you want to get the larger DF-SS cable elevators for longer runs and larger cables.

Cheers.
 
I tried these lifters and was just not impressed. I also tried the SR versions.
For a lot less dough the Audioquest Fog lifters worked great and actually sound better.

IMHO that is.

ozzy
 
I have a mixture of Shunyata power cable elevators, and while I can’t comment on any audio improvement, I can say they make it easier to keep the floor clean.

EF3802ED-D0A7-432B-80E0-5FB55AEA911F.jpeg
 
A number of years ago while at a local high end dealer I too questioned the efficacy of Shunyata cable lifters. At that time it was before the DFSS version. He removed them from the speaker cables and the impact was clear. Soundstage was smaller with less focus. With the lifters back under the cables, sound was restored. Crazy, but, real.
 
Well i have also heard a clear improvement for cable lifters from another company , it was on a concrete floor and was very easy to hear how much better it was. I was then able to loan some for me to try out on my carpeted floor , and although there was an improvement it wants big enough to buy. My point here is that i think results can actually change due to cement - carpeted - or wooden floor. So some may work better than others in the setup at home due to these differences.
 
FDPDK said:
Well i have also heard a clear improvement for cable lifters from another company , it was on a concrete floor and was very easy to hear how much better it was. I was then able to loan some for me to try out on my carpeted floor , and although there was an improvement it wants big enough to buy. My point here is that i think results can actually change due to cement - carpeted - or wooden floor. So some may work better than others in the setup at home due to these differences.
Click to expand...

It seems reasonable that carpeted floors, particularly wool carpets, may be prone to producing higher static field potentials than wood or cement.
 
gshelley said:
A number of years ago while at a local high end dealer I too questioned the efficacy of Shunyata cable lifters. At that time it was before the DFSS version. He removed them from the speaker cables and the impact was clear. Soundstage was smaller with less focus. With the lifters back under the cables, sound was restored. Crazy, but, real.
Click to expand...

It might have been these guys...they work really well, too. The Dark Field Minis are simply a smaller version.

Orignal%20Shunyata%20Cable%20lifters.jpg


One of the key points is to also use them under power cables.
 
Yes, I believe that is the version I heard back then. I’ve been using DFSS in my system under PCs, speaker and interconnect cables. My wife kids me about it every now and then.
 
Puma Cat said:
Once I was back home, I set my PCs behind my rack up on the Dark Field Minis. Here's a pic showing them under the PCs. Some parts of the PC's that contact the floor are resting on A/V Roomservice's CVP (cable vibration protectors), which do the same thing as the Dark Field Minis, but do not elevate the cable off the floor.

IMG_5711%202.JPG


And sure enough, when I listened to my system with the PCs supported by the Dark Field Minis or the CVPs, the soundstage opened up, was more transparent with improved focus.

In conclusion, the reason it took me so long to try these enhancements to the system was...I was skeptical that they would result in any real, practical and consistent improvement. The fact they do result in an clear and consistent improvement in audio quality was notable, and more to the point, the degree of improvement they bring was even more of a (very pleasant) surprise.

I know some folks will still be skeptical. I get it, I was, too. But the Shunyata Dark Field Minis are inexpensive, a box of 12 only costs 100 bucks. My recommendation? Buy a box and do your own experiments. If you obtain the improvements I did, you can decide if you want to get the larger DF-SS cable elevators for longer runs and larger cables.

Cheers.
Click to expand...

a box of 12 only costs 100 bucks,I want to know where I can buy it
 
Puma Cat said:
It seems reasonable that carpeted floors, particularly wool carpets, may be prone to producing higher static field potentials than wood or cement.
Click to expand...

Yeah, static from my carpet when wearing damp woolen socks turns off my integrated amp whenever I touch the chassis.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top