Grounding boxes?

[Yomanze]

At RF, current takes the path of lowest impedance, so (playing Devil's advocate!) I wonder if these boxes are acting as some sort of RF ground / sink rather than a hard DC ground. A lot of the literature does not help, painting them as some magical ground boxes and not looking into the science of what could be happening.

Am not sure the term "grounding box" helps either... maybe "RF noise sink" or something, or maybe I am chatting bollocks...

[Folsom]

At RF, current takes the path of lowest impedance, so (playing Devil's advocate!) I wonder if these boxes are acting as some sort of RF ground / sink rather than a hard DC ground. A lot of the literature does not help, painting them as some magical ground boxes and not looking into the science of what could be happening.

Am not sure the term "grounding box" helps either... maybe "RF noise sink" or something, or maybe I am chatting bollocks...

Wonder no more. The answer is still no.

Why is the answer that they add RF unacceptable if you like the results? Are egos more important than the sound someone likes?

People enjoy second harmonic distortion generators, that’s acceptable but RF is a no?

[mad-moon]

Yep, agree. I'm science based, but with this hobby, as we know it's not that simple, so I have a simple adage for my own personal system and requirements. If I think it sounds good then it goes in my system if not it stays out. I'm not bothered about anyone else!

[doodoos]

I’m too jaded for all this. Some of the biggest improvements I’ve made is removing all the devices I’ve spent a fortune on and going back to basics....

[Macca]

Yes, but presumably people who have bought them have already heard the difference they make (to their ears at least, and hopefully in their own system), before they parted with their money.

I don't think many people fork out £400 without thought, so 'expectation bias' ought not come into it.

Not at all. Unconscious bias is always a possibility. Intuitively we think our senses connect us directly with objective reality when in fact there is a buffer in between, the brain, which can add all sorts of things to our perception.

[Mr. C]

This is good healthy debate, usual one side v's the other but good interactions keep it coming coming, Barry I feel you are closer so far to towards what is happening RF wise. To complete a circuit in RF terms Tx & Rx then air is your dielectric and transmission line (the same as a piece of wire in a circuit) how else does a mobile phone work? Signal has a transmit and receive point no wires involved in that situation.

Noise on the mains earth line is easily seen on a power analyzer or oscilloscope and is quantifiable, we are not talking about incoming earth ground noise. To which you can deal via separate means. We are talking about internally generated RF which happens in pretty much all electrical equipment to a greater or less degree depending on design, usage and how much thought was put into emc suppression techniques.

As Jez mentioned you 'Canna change the laws of physics' unless you are some Omnipotent being who's ability to manipulate matter by sheer thought (Paul Miller ) , so back to reality. Energy can only have it's state changed it doesn't disappear .

For example electrical DC energy going through a LVDO from say 9vdc to 5.5vdc will have a lot of his power (energy) converted to heat as with many things in EE (electrical engineering)

So what happens to the RF energy? in a grounding box, my thermal camera is pretty sensitive, but never seen a unit vampire poo container at anything other than a couple of degrees above ambient temp?

Back to possibilities and rf generation inside audio equipment, many things generate RF interference, switching regulators, FET's clocks, integrated circuits, poorly designed circuit pathways, FPGA's big spewer of RF (Dave anyone? ) Mains borne ingress plus many other reasons.

Now a couple of examples of measured RF inside audio equipment.

First image of the equipment used, the next two of a highly reviewed Dac that measures exceptionally well and used that much vaulted 575 Crystek clock model. First image was measured at the analogue XLR outputs after all of the digital conversion had taken place, the second is after I had implemented a series of RF reduction techniques and measured in the same place. This was after it was given a glowing review by a well known internet site and praised to the hilt.






The results was very nice improvement in tonal quality, virtual elimination of upper frequency harsh, and forwardness coupled with a much better sense of ease to the sound. This was purely the high frequency harmonics of the leading clock edge which put out up to and over 2Ghz (l saw over 35 harmonic incidents) so although humans cannot by any stretch of the imagination have any perception of the actual frequencies at this level what we can have a perception of is how these frequencies effect the ones we do have a perception of. As on how these RF frequencies effect the other components inside the equipment and by removing them the sonic differences observed. Audio analyzers only look at frequencies around 200Khz (192Khz) if you have a fancy one with add on's maybe 768Khz via DoP. However the fundamental clock frequency of this dac is 100Mhz so no audio analyses looks at frequencies this high. Which is why its not picked up in the initial measurements. The figures maybe great BUT they do not tell the whole truth, that your ear's job!


Now the same achievement was demonstrated by connecting two grounding leads one to each of the various 0 volt rails, you only have my word for this I understand and I could say absolutely anything to try and persuade you that kit litter containers are the holy grail, simply not the case.


So back to kitter litter containers chaps..........................

[Mr. C]

Sorry double post

[anthonyTD]

I tend to agree ie; concerning high frequencies way out of the Audio band, having an affect on what we can hear, and again,I also agree that Dac's are very problematic, especialy when choosing the type of filtering used, and power supply design etc.
As you say, you cannot create or destroy an energy, you can only convert it, however; some would argue that energy, as a fundamental doesent actualy exist!
A...

[Mr. C]

Hi Tony

Indeed dark matter et al is best left to those who very intelligent conceptual minds can wrap around those quantum reality theorems. Though with such intrinsic tunnel thinking other everyday items are quite tricky for them!

I have plenty of examples of measurable RF energy using a transmission line this time a cable (lol) to progress from one point of the audio system to another, is also varies as the individual items in the system are switched on in turn causing an accumulated effect.

Whether you can categorically state this is the Vampire poo effect I can not say 100% in any shape or form. What I can observe in REAL TIME is that the amount of RF energy in dBuV increases with the more audio equipment that is connected to the Poo box.

This is repeatable in every system I have taken these measurements mostly in customers homes.

This is not conclusive proof of whether these boxes work by the means stated in any way, but what it does show is that RF is present in places you would not expect those pesky kids to be! Just to say I firmly believe there is ground to be covered here which is why in the last 18 months I have personally invested over six figures in high quality test equipment for investigations in the field of audio and well beyond.

[anthonyTD]

I have often said; that every perceived, and therefore repeatable diffrence heard in audio replay, from whatever the cause, can be tested for, if you know where to look, and how to test it, i think we are starting to undertand that not all that glitters is gold, hence there is a need to look elsewhere to find the reason why some things not currently understood, can cause the affects we can clearly hear.
A...

Hi Tony

Indeed dark matter et al is best left to those who very intelligent conceptual minds can wrap around those quantum reality theorems. Though with such intrinsic tunnel thinking other everyday items are quite tricky for them!

I have plenty of examples of measurable RF energy using a transmission line this time a cable (lol) to progress from one point of the audio system to another, is also varies as the individual items in the system are switched on in turn causing an accumulated effect.

Whether you can categorically state this is the Vampire poo effect I can not say 100% in any shape or form. What I can observe in REAL TIME is that the amount of RF energy in dBuV increases with the more audio equipment that is connected to the Poo box.

This is repeatable in every system I have taken these measurements mostly in customers homes.

This is not conclusive proof of whether these boxes work by the means stated in any way, but what it does show is that RF is present in places you would not expect those pesky kids to be! Just to say I firmly believe there is ground to be covered here which is why in the last 18 months I have personally invested over six figures in high quality test equipment for investigations in the field of audio and well beyond.