The true experimental tweak thread

[MikeyFresh]

Has anyone tried either chassis or signal grounds attached to a metal equipment rack?

 

I have a Symposium rack that has grounding points pre drilled at the rear of each shelf, but I've never actually tried them.

 

 

I'm thinking of either a chassis or signal ground from the preamp as a good place to start?

[MikeyFresh]

16 minutes ago, Cornan said:

 

I think those grounding screws on the equipment rack should be connected to a ground receptacle to reduce statics/EMI/RFI of the equipment stand. Not to be used as a grounding point for other devices. It can definately improve SQ.

Entreq have equipment stands that should be grounded to their grounding boxes for this purpose.

 

Thank you, this is a good excuse to make another of the JSGT cables, but for the equipment rack instead of a SMPS!

[MikeyFresh]

On 10/28/2017 at 8:26 PM, Cornan said:

 

I think those grounding screws on the equipment rack should be connected to a ground receptacle to reduce statics/EMI/RFI of the equipment stand. Not to be used as a grounding point for other devices. It can definately improve SQ.

Entreq have equipment stands that should be grounded to their grounding boxes for this purpose.

 

I grounded my Symposium rack and it did make a small but appreciable improvement (better low-level detail revealing small things previously buried in the mix).

 

I don't think it is in my imagination, and it certainly does not sound worse, so I will leave it in place:

 

 

[MikeyFresh]

9 hours ago, Cornan said:

I got right to it and butchered my Gotham Audio GAC-1 Pro Spdif cable

 

A necessary sacrifice, nice job on this!

[MikeyFresh]

28 minutes ago, Speed Racer said:

You are putting out ridiculous information.

 

No he isn't.

 

It's his thread, and he has actually tried all of the combinations that he is posting about, there is nothing ridiculous about any of that.

 

Rather, it is ridiculous that you continue to lurk in threads like this for the sole purpose of trolling.

[MikeyFresh]

28 minutes ago, Speed Racer said:

No one "owns" threads in this part of the forum.

 

I never said anyone "owned" anything, your words not mine. The site moderator has made it clear however, that the thread starter does have the ability to decide what is on-topic and what isn't.

 

In your case you are lucky the thread starter doesn't deem your steady stream of troll crap as worthy of the heave-ho.

 

28 minutes ago, Speed Racer said:

You don't need...

 

You don't "need" to instantly attack opinions expressed in an experimental thread as ridiculous. What anyone wishes to try on either an experimental or permanent basis is not subject to approval from the audio police, or in this case you or your merry little band of trolls.

 

If you don't like the thread content, then just move along, no one died and left you in charge of the audio consumer protection police. Why do you think you can identify "hooey" so much better than everyone else? You can't.

 

Full disclosure - both you and the esteemed scientist Ralf are on my ignore list, I will not engage in any back and forth with your ilk. Goodbye.

[MikeyFresh]

My home is not wired for ethernet, to get network audio in my HiFi room I use an Apple Airport Express as a wireless media bridge, it's ethernet output feeding a Sonore microRendu.

 

Recently after reading John Swenson's testing results, I added a Netgear ProSAFE FS105 switch in between the AEx and microRendu, along with a ground shunt on the DC output of the FS105's SMPS.

 

Even though it adds complexity, circuitry, wires etc... the above gave a pretty nice performance lift.

 

But what about the AEx? It has an integral SMPS, and a flip out AC plug for direct connection to a power receptacle. I wondered if grounding it would yield any further improvement.

 

I decided rather than tearing open the AEx to examine it's insides for grounding points, an easy first step would be to construct a ground shunt using a USB Type A plug, because the AEx has an unused USB port.

 

Sure enough, adding this USB ground to the AEx seems nearly as good as adding the one to the ethernet switch.

 

This leaves me still curious about tearing open the AEx, I'm unclear as to whether or not grounding through the USB port is essentially the same thing as finding an internal grounding point on the SMPS.

 

I'll probably just stick with the USB ground given it seems to work well and does not necessitate tearing open the AEx, but I'm also unclear as to why this would offer additional improvement if I'm already shunting AC leakage to ground downstream of the AEx, via the shunt on the FS105.

 

Thoughts?

 

PS - both the AEx and FS105 are on a separate AC circuit than the rest of the HiFi system, and the microRendu is further isolated by an UpTone LPS-1 UltraCap power supply.

[MikeyFresh]

48 minutes ago, Cornan said:

For me personally grounding the GND screw adds an additional jump in SQ on my Aqvox switch despite JSGT. I guess the GND takes care of additional leakage/noises that the JSGT doesn't shunt.

 

Thank you for that suggestion, I'll try adding another ground connection to the FS105's GND screw.

 

Here is the cable, the heat shrink came out a little crooked but acceptable. I had to use 18 gauge wire this time, the solder tab on the USB plug would not accommodate the 14 gauge wire I had used on my other shunts: