Coherent RTZ GROUNDING BOX

[Bigman80]

I had Alan visit today with the Coherent RTZ grounding box. I must say straight off the bat that I didn't know what to expect. I use a BMU for all parts except the amplifier (Krell KSA 100 MK2) which is plugged directly into the wall.

The Source was Vinyl via my SP10 MK2/Kontrapunkt B/PMAT1010

Phonostage was the Bigbottle into the DCB1 preamp.

We started off with a track I know very well:

Paul Simon - Under African Skies

We did an acclimatization of the system without the RTZ in the system before we got going.

We put the box in and started the track again. Instantly I could hear that the box was having an effect.

At the end of the track, Alan and I discussed what we each heard. Alan felt the bass got tighter but I didn't feel it was "tighter" I actually felt the bass had hardened and wasn't quite as descriptive.

We decided to play the track again.

After the second, more intent listen, I had more concerns. The transients had been lost and the (artificially reproduced) room acoustics on the recording were missing. I suspected this in the first evaluation but was sidetracked by focusing on the effect it had on the bass.

Again we discussed what we heard.

I was absolutely convinced that the normally cavernous soundstage had gone, the chest cavity was no longer audible and everything sounded a little flat.

We then took the RTZ grounding box out.

As I suspected, the sounstage returned to its huge size, transients returned and to be honest, it was just better all round.

The ambience and detail was completely sucked out by the RTZ and I am totally perplexed by it.

We then tried: David Bowie - Stoned Love

I picked this track because of the hand claps at the start, and the large amount of reverb on the track.

Again, with the RTZ in circuit, it was flat. The reverb didn't decay, it just didn't happen and in the end Alan told me to turn it off. It just sounded shit. We tried it again without the box and again, without it we were listening to a great track, full of layers and depth. It was not subtle. I'm very serious about that.

Obviously, there will be claims of "in a balanced system" and all that jazz, but this system IS balanced. It IS high quality. It is a superb tool at revealing the qualities of anything you plug into it. Nothing is able to hide in the chain. I compiled it to be exactly that. Revealing.

I can only surmise that the suspicions I had before it came here, that if you properly sort the mains out, either by a BMU or some megastructure in your garden, it's unlikely to have such a large effect.

In Alan's system, the result is totally the opposite. It helps his system to perform better but here it killed everything. Alan's had better space in the soundstage and definitely appeared more revealing. I think I now need to revisit Alan's system and do the same tracks there.

What I can now say, CONCLUSIVELY, is that it does do something. It just may not be entirely desirable.