Recently I swapped some components between my living room and home office stereo. I won’t go into the lurid details, but suffice it to say that, whereas in the earlier home office setup the amplifier was on the top of a stack of three components and could therefore ventilate freely, in the new configuration the new amplifier is on the bottom (it weighs over 50 pounds) and therefore needs some space between it and other components for ventilation.
I could go all high-tech and use a small component rack, but instead I went looking around for some household items that might give me two to three inches of lift from the amplifier to the Audio Research DAC above. After a bit of trolling about, I realized that a set of four stainless steel au jus cups would do the trick nicely. They are just the right height, they’re sturdy enough to hold up the DAC without problems, and they look kinda snazzy in their new role. So I put one cup each underneath the four rubber feet on the bottom of the DAC, and Bob’s your uncle. Adequate ventilation is assured. Oh, I don’t have au jus cups for the next time I have a dinner party that includes prime rib, but as I think about it, the last time I used those cups was to hold a garlic mayonnaise or something along those lines. They were taking up pantry space and serving no purpose, the dang freeloaders. Now they have a mission. Now they have a purpose. Now I’m glad that I bought them—whenever and why ever that was.
Cue to a few days later and an audiophile acquaintance came by to hear the lovely new Luxman amplifier in the living room. (The Luxman was the reason for the swap; my living room’s big heavy NAD amplifier went into my home office.) During the course of the visit, I also showed him my office stereo. He noted the au jus cups. “Oh!!” he said enthusiastically, “Aren’t those the new Dr. Stewart Quantum-Balanced Component Risers? I read a review of them in Cable Talk.”
“No,” I replied. “I wouldn’t know a Dr. Stewart Quantum-Balanced Component Riser if it reared up and bit me on the tuckus.”
“Hmm … maybe they are the older model PVL Analog Devices Lifters?”
“Nope.”
“Really? Well, you must have some reason for having bought risers. They’re said to make such a profound difference in the sound.”
“It was to lift up the DAC so the amplifier can get enough ventilation. It’s not good for either the amp or the DAC to get too hot, you know.”
“Right. So what are those risers?”
“They’re stainless steel au jus cups from the pantry.”
And at that point he actually got angry with me. Using plain old stainless steel cups? Was I crazy? What kind of impact was that having on the sound? None at all that I can hear, I replied. How could they? The DAC doesn’t know whether it’s sitting on au jus cups, blocks of pure platinum, or Cable Talk—approved rubber cylinders. Maybe it’s a little less secure than it would be on a component rack, but that’s about it.
It began to dawn on me that this guy actually believes in the silly snake oil that puddles in the darker corners of audiophile-dom. That one rubber doohickey that you use to lift up a component a few inches might actually produce different sound than another rubber doohickey. That statements such as this:
Once turned on, the Energizer generates a PVA Field that aligns the atmospheric content, mainly the air molecules. When the micro-phase alignment is achieved, sound transmission loss in the air will be minimized, enabling a clear sound projection over distance. The effective transmission of sound provides excellent acoustic conditions to render stronger resonance, richer harmonics and fuller nuances.
are anything other than nonsensical come-ons to the gullible.
We agreed to disagree. I will continue propping up my DAC with a dollar’s worth of stainless steel au jus cups. He might go out and spend $1200 on a set of rubber doohickeys that do the same thing. And I suppose we’ll both be happy about it.