Grounding boxes - The real deal

[Clive]

Smell is one of the senses, though. Are we talking about some sort of 'sixth sense', like what enables you to talk to dead people?

Let's not close our minds. The modern world makes us think in clinical or scientific ways. In much earlier times we might easily have been able to use parts of our brains are which are mostly unused today...hence perception. Eg maybe telepathy was practiced. It could be that some of us are influenced by senses that the scientists amongst us don't understand. Do some people have a 6th sense? Can you really say not?

[Bigman80]

If you'd like to indulge in the oddity of Grounding Boxes. Heres the stuff the Japanese think should go in:

[Bigman80]

Could be the Chinese. I'm drugged up again

[CageyH]

Quite where you would fit a fuse of any kind in a grounding cable which is terminated on the box end by either a spade or banana and on the equipment end with an RCA phono plug, BNC, XLR, USB or RJ45 connector, is beyond me!

Remember too, that the terminations at the equipment end are only connected to ground!

Just thought I would mention this as it doesn't appear as though you have been following the discussion closely!

My comment about the fuses was a bit tongue in cheek....
The terminations at the equipment end are only connected to ground?
Which ground? The main electrical ground in your house or the common ground plane created by the box?

[AJSki2fly]

Let's not close our minds. The modern world makes us think in clinical or scientific ways. In much earlier times we might easily have been able to use parts of our brains are which are mostly unused today...hence perception. Eg maybe telepathy was practiced. It could be that some of us are influenced by senses that the scientists amongst us don't understand. Do some people have a 6th sense? Can you really say not?

Personally I am not closing my mind to what a grounding box may or may not achieve, I am plannng to try and make ne and see if there is any difference to the sound.

As for the arguments relating to perceived sound above 20khz that we do not hear in the aural sense, then I am open to someone showing me tests and measurements that it occurs and our brains actually do physically receive ultra sound which affect how we perceive music. I and others on here are probably not in the position to spend large amounts of money on high end high costing equipment to conduct an experiment to determinine if it what is claimed is true, especially when we cannot physically see or hear the result, hence cautious n rather than dis-belief.

[Macca]

Let's not close our minds. The modern world makes us think in clinical or scientific ways. In much earlier times we might easily have been able to use parts of our brains are which are mostly unused today...hence perception. Eg maybe telepathy was practiced. It could be that some of us are influenced by senses that the scientists amongst us don't understand. Do some people have a 6th sense? Can you really say not?

Not having a closed mind means doing research and experimentation to see if the claims hold up as opposed to dismissing them out of hand. It doesn't mean just accepting them as fact because no-one has demonstrated they are not true.


It does seem that despite the painstaking R&D that has gone into this product not even a basic measurement of its effectiveness in reducing the noise floor has been made. Those two things don't sit well together.

[Marco]

Not having a closed mind means doing research and experimentation to see if the claims hold up as opposed to dismissing them out of hand. It doesn't mean just accepting them as fact because no-one has demonstrated they are not true.

Indeed, and neither does it mean just accepting that such claims aren't true, because currently there is no scientific explanation for them!

Marco.

[Clive]

Hopefully the open minds here (not hear...) have read the scientific paper linked to previously. It doesn't give a nice understandable graph proving anything in the audio realm but it does give us a strong pointer that frequencies above 20kHz produce some form of response. The paper is not the sort of science I find easy to follow but the conclusion is relatively straighforward:

In conclusion, our findings that showed an increase in alphaEEG potentials, activation of deep-seated brain structures, a correlation between alpha-EEG and rCBF in the thalamus, and a subjective preference toward FRS, give strong evidence supporting the existence of a previously unrecognized response to high-frequency sound beyond the audible range that might be distinct from more usual auditory phenomena. Additional support for this hypothesis could come from future noninvasive measurements of the biochemical markers in the brain such asmonoamines or opioid peptides.

To get back onto grounding boxes....

3 or 4 years ago Robert Bastani (Bastanis Speakers) sent me a passive mains gizmo (I can't call it a device). He refuses to tell me what's in it but does say the mains connection isn't broken. I know that he is into crystals and uses them in his cone treatments. I've a very strong idea that the inline mains gizmo has some crystals inside it. This gizmo makes a very noticeable positive
impact on the sound of my system and other systems I've tried it in. The gizmo is used infront of the mains for my entire system. This is not a grounding box as in a line level but it might be called a grounding box for mains power Here it is:

mains by Clive M, on Flickr.

I can understand reticence to believe this stuff (ie grounding boxes) and as for myself they fall into the realm of bloody frustrating as I'd rather not have to mess with these things which do seem like voodoo but certainly in the case of the Bastani gizmo...it works.

[Joe]

Let's not close our minds. The modern world makes us think in clinical or scientific ways. In much earlier times we might easily have been able to use parts of our brains are which are mostly unused today...hence perception. Eg maybe telepathy was practiced. It could be that some of us are influenced by senses that the scientists amongst us don't understand. Do some people have a 6th sense? Can you really say not?

I can say that, despite research over many decades, no proof, or even evidence of a sixth sense has emerged. Plenty of anecdotal reports, but nothing that has withstood rigorous testing in laboratory conditions. 'Believers' will say that this is because such powers are impaired by the 'stress' of test situations. Curiously, the same claim is made of perceived/claimed differences between audio components such as cables, which cannot be verified under blind testing.

[Clive]

I can say that, despite research over many decades, no proof, or even evidence of a sixth sense has emerged. Plenty of anecdotal reports, but nothing that has withstood rigorous testing in laboratory conditions. 'Believers' will say that this is because such powers are impaired by the 'stress' of test situations. Curiously, the same claim is made of perceived/claimed differences between audio components such as cables, which cannot be verified under blind testing.

This all came out of it being said to be impossible to sense or perceive frequencies above 20kHz - 6th sense was purely my way of trying to find some way to describe it. Hopefully given the paper discussed in this thread there's at least some questioning in your mind.