Grounding boxes?

[Pharos]

It is hard to accept that we are all rather affected by all sorts of simultaneous events, we are not a fixed entity but one subject to numerous dynamic events in out lives, and from which it is hard/impossible to isolate.

We are 'floating points'.

[Mr. C]

"Would these improvement have come about by simply connecting all the 'earths' together without the 'grounding box'?

Good question Barry

From experience no, the mains PE (earth) has a separate and quite different effect from the ground planes.

Connecting the two separate items from my experience results in a downward step is SQ.

Remember some equipment has a floating earth,

You can also try for your self the naim method, by connecting your audio equipment case work together (do check that you will not cause problems by doing so).

Earth bourne noise is very different in a couple of fundamental ways from that conducted/radiated noise on the ground planes imho

[Barry]

I should have been more specific: by 'earths' I meant signal returns and not the mains safety earths.

There is a risk of course that additional signal return paths could form 'earth loops', but if the additional leads run parallel, and very close, to the signal interconnects, the area of the loop available to be threaded by stray magnetic fields will be minimal.

I cannot try the idea for myself as all my equipment uses balanced line connections, source to speaker.

[Mr. C]

Hi Barry

So is my system, Mikes systems (fully dual differential balanced) and virtually all of the other systems i deal with that use some form of GB but you have other sockets on your equipment yes?

[Barry]

Yes, all of my gear is fully dual-differential in its topology. The power amplifiers (monoblocks) are located directly behind each speaker and are some 8 metres from the preamps and sources, connected via balanced-line cables which run under the floor. Providing additional parallel groundplane 'earths' would be difficult.

[Mr. C]

Hi Barry

So just XLR inputs on the amps?

What about the pre and sources? maybe more than one input/output on each?

I have seen one customer who used a well know vampire poo box with a similar set up long balanced runs to the mono's and short speaker cable, he use not one but TWO VP units joined together and connected to the RCA input of the mono's so four (GB's) connected to the mono's and not to a single GB reference point, not surprisingly it did sound much better when the VP boxes were removed. The dealer who sold this chap the VP equipment must have been rather persuasive!

[Discopants]

Very interesting and well mannered thread guys, please keep at it. I’d like to add my own subjective experiences to this discussion.

I’ve recently had an Akiko audio Castello grounding device in for evaluation on my system. This is a Dutch company and this unit retails for about 1200 euros. It has 3 connectors and you get 3 cables of your connector choice supplied. Its totally sealed the contents are a mystery to me but its solid , might be potted inside. With the grounding unit attached to TDAI 3400, Etherregen (fancy network switch, it works very well in my system, please don’t derail this thread) and the 3rd one I attached to the TV as my options were running out. I thought I detected a slightly more natural/relaxed presentation, possibly an improved tonality on piano higher end. I had it for 5 days then went away for 10 days and a further 7 days after that leaving it attached. Then i took it out and put it back for several cycles and listened to 3 tracks back and forth. Improvements to my ears were very marginal and possibly only imagined. As a value proposition in my system, performance gains <1% vs 8% total system cost.

I wasn’t persuaded to buy one, at this time.

I have a lot of effective tweaks and accessories in this streaming system and I’m already targeting clean power, vibrational energy and rfi/emf control. Its possible I’m hitting whatever these devices address elsewhere closer to source of the problem.


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