Noise reduction

[walpurgis]

Carry on chaps!
I haven't laughed so much in years

It's no laughing matter Chris!

[RothwellAudio]

Lets hear your argument for saying it cant improve sound quality given the understanding that it needs to be electrically safe and not create earth loops.

I haven't said that it can't improve sound quality. In fact, I said the opposite, as quoted below.

Making random connections between zero volts and mains earth may occasionally result in an improvement (if you're lucky) but is more likely to cause problems.

[bumpy]

I haven't said that it can't improve sound quality. In fact, I said the opposite, as quoted below.

Excellent, so you and I are on the same hymn sheet.

[Macca]

Safety is a given in any component - caveat emptor, and any mug can hear an earth loop so we can dismiss that from the equation.

Why are you trying to confuse the real debate about whether this cable can improve sound quality?

Yes the debate is confused when it is really quite simple:

1) The cable may or may not increase subjective sound quality, we can only tell by listening.

2) even if the cable does increase subjective sound quality we do not know how it does this since the manufacturer's explanation for how it works is nonsense and their claim that it 'dramatically reduces the noise floor' is not backed up by measurements.

3) So assuming it does increase subjective sound quality we can only guess as to how it does that. Possibly it does so by acting as an antenna for RFI in a similar way to the far more expensive Entreq grounding boxes. Like the Entreq it is a passive device so there is not much more it could do. The claim that it 'drains away' noise like you might drain puss from a wound is simply a blatant attempt to mug off the ignorant.

4) Given that we can make our own RFI antenna from stuff we have lying around why would we pay $200 for this one?

5) The makers know it does not work the way they claim it does so they are being dishonest. They are also making an enormous profit on each one sold. If they were to say 'We don't know why it works but it does' and charged $50 I would have no problem with it. It's the bullshit and the rip-of price that piss me off.

This is why 'just listening to it' is insufficient to make a rational judgement about any item of hi-fi and especially items like this.

[sumday]

Right....just to bring us all down to Earth.....I thank you....

If I were to spend 200 quid on this piece of crap, my wife would STAB me.

And considering its now quite close to Christmas...probably stamp on my (given the current weather) rapidly cooling corpse.

[bumpy]

This is why 'just listening to it' is insufficient to make a rational judgement about any item of hi-fi and especially items like this.

Well I'm obviously a mug for making purchases based on sound quality vs value for money. When Walpurgis proves to us both aurally and scientifically that his donkey device equals the thoroughbred race horse I am prepared to pay him £5 for it. His R&D costs have been minimal and his outlay on raw material positively miserly. I wont be ripped off.

[WESTLOWER]

[RothwellAudio]

When Walpurgis proves to us both aurally and scientifically that his donkey device equals the thoroughbred race horse...

Do you really think there's any difference between the donkey and the thoroughbred here?

[Stratmangler]

Is anyone going to make the statement that signal ground isn't the same as mains protective ground?
Damn, I just did .....

Andrew Rothwell has given very strong hints in this direction.

Connecting the signal ground to mains ground is not a wise thing to do.
You'll be fine 99.9999999% of the time, but if there's fault condition then there's potential (pun intended) for what could be catastrophic current flow.

[mikeyb]

Do you really think there's any difference between the donkey and the thoroughbred here?

Of course there is, one of them is wearing a jacket