Proper Grounding a system

[fas42]

Have fiddled with grounding arrangements, and it always changes the sound - but I wouldn't buy an expensive box to deal with it. 'Fixing' the engineering of the overall system is the smartest approach - the fact that one has a number of boxes tied together with cable using flakey connectors is just asking for trouble; no wonder these add-ons have an effect.

[fas42]

Altering the grounding does make a difference - whether better or not will depend upon everything. A chap on another forum has discovered "extreme grounding", which is tying the chasses together with massive strands of copper, a whole "web" of the stuff. For him, it has meant major advances in quality, which I find quite apparent in the videos he's posted of playback of his system.

[fas42]

The inherent weakness of how audio systems are typically assembled is that there is poor control of the grounding - but people want to play with all sorts of toys, so that's the way the industry has gone ... . If I had a dollar for every time people say, "I went to fully active speakers - and the SQ I'm getting now!!", well ...

 

Mostly by intent I have used extremely simple, minimal options setups - which automatically eliminates whole swathes of weaknesses. My first 'good' setup used a top notch CDP, with digital volume, directly driving a "monster" power amp - grounding wasn't such a critical issue.

[fas42]

5 hours ago, mekong56 said:

It doesn't really change anything about the system, just makes it better across the board. I think all of the above is basically a function of less noise. I am not qualified to speak technically on what the unit is doing or how it is doing it, nor am I really going to worry about that. Don't care to debate the technicals. However, I knew within a day of listening that it's affect was substantial IN MY SYSTEM, and there was no way I was moving forward without one! I would suspect it will be system dependent upon each home's power and wiring infrastructure and grounding setup. I will say that it  was a much more substantial effect than when I dropped a QX4 into my system.

 

Yes. It's all about reducing SQ degrading artifacts which are at a relatively low level, ie, hard to measure . There are as probably as many techniques for doing this as there are people who discover the importance of tackling this area of sound reproduction - what's at the core of all of them is that they counteract, in some manner, the weaknesses in the audio system that allow the degradation to occur.

[fas42]

3 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

And a 3rd issue is whether a $10 solution might provide the same SQ improvement.

 

Indeed, the $10 solution is just as effective - the last time I spent big money on expensive audiophile 'solutions' was 30 years ago - but I'm a fiddler; I'm happy to dive inside of things; and try bits of material that are lying around, or can be purchased from an ordinary store down the road. People who are not so inclined will require some packaged solution, possibly expensive.

[fas42]

23 minutes ago, monteverdi said:

So I decided to make just a little experiment. I soldered a 12 awg wire to the outer part (ground) of an old RCA (center pin unused) and connected that wire to the ground pin of an AC plug. When I connected that RCA to an spare input of my Devialet Pro and plugged it in a wall outlet (ground) I noticed a obvious sound improvement especially im the definition of the lows but also the rest of the spectrum.

I wonder if I need some fairy dust for further improvements.

 

Clever boy! It's amazing what experiments can tell one - obviously, most are too petrified to try a thing or two - gosh, they might learn something that upsets their nice, neat world of beliefs ...

[fas42]

3 minutes ago, marce said:

You do sprout some rubbish, working on noise free controls etc. for all the other electronic stuff (including submarines and aircraft, no mother earth there) means we have learnt something that if you listened you may benefit from instead of playing.

 

Hello marce, long time no chat!

 

Of course there are solutions and techniques to resolve all these annoyances, and it's always much easier when one has full control over the engineering of the entire system - as you are typically quick to point out, there is tonnes of literature to guide one. However, the reality of how conventional audio setups are assembled does allow audible anomalies to figure - so, one has to do "fixit" stuff after the fact.