How DOES the grounding boxes work?

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Everything sounds better if  I plug all my equipment here: 

 

 

I try not to go blind

 

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2 hours ago, Cornan said:

 

Interesting! I like the idea that the grounding boxes are changing ground currents/noise! ? Do you think they block them or just reduces them?

I can tell you that I always found the grounding boxes to have "similar" effects to a GND-lift.

 

As I recall, your setup has multiple power supplies powering multiple devices. 

 

The grounding box may be identical to a ground lift. It is very possible that the alterations you make to your system in order to place the grounding box, may be what have the effect, rather than properties of the box itself.

 

Breaking ground loops would be a good explanation.

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1 hour ago, Cornan said:

 

I know about the system typology thread. I posted there as well. 

Here is my latest system typology for anyone here to view and comment upon. The Entreq Minimus is connected to the Aqvox switch.

 

 

This system is complicated enough that any changes to the grounding connections could have an audible effect.

 

If you are looking for a scientific approach to how a "grounding box" works, you need to have the desire to disprove the "null hypothesis" and be willing to accept failure to do so. Look for explanations other than an intrinsic property of the box.

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6 hours ago, Cornan said:

This would be fine if I asked about how physics works. In this thread I would like to hear thoughts and plausible ideas how grounding boxes might work. If you are 100% sure that they do not work I just see no point why you want to post anything at all.  

 

There is a lot of back and forth. 

 

Are you interested in scientific discussion of grounding boxes?

 

Central to a scientific explanation is disproof of the null hypothesis. That is a scientist will start out with the hypothesis that the grounding box doesn't do anything and then attempt to prove this hypothesis wrong. This may seem counterintuitive to the non-scientist but is essential to the notion of falsifiability. So start with this.

 

Perhaps you aren't interested in a scientific explanation however. This is OK. There are questions that are not scientific. For example "what is the best way to behave to ensure that I will get into heaven?" This is not a scientific question, rather a religious question. It would be wrong to answer that "heaven doesn't exist according to physics" Physics has nothing to answer that question.

 

So let me ask the question: Do you want a scientific answer to the question: how does the grounding box work?

 

If not a scientific answer then what type of answer are you looking for?

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5 minutes ago, fas42 said:

This is almost certainly not the case. However it may be working in the electrical sphere, the benefit of such approaches is that the audible "noise level" is reduced - that is, more of the detail within the recording can be heard, what's heard is more 'pleasant', and the volume can be increased with "less cringing".

 

This would be an example of a magical explanation, the electrical sphere perhaps being infused with magic? I take it that this would be an acceptable answer? There is nothing wrong with magic. I find it very entertaining and audio is also entertainment!

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4 hours ago, marce said:

When we are doing signal integrity we model scope leads so that we can add the loading to the simulation to get a truer picture (!) of what they will see on a scope with a probe. We can also see what the waveform looks like without a scope, So we simulate and work on the real waveform and use l probe loaded waveforms to confirm the results...

 

Since the box is putatively connected to the case of the piece of electrical equipment I wonder if there might be an effect on the degree of balance the case provides as shielding. The possibilities are multiple and would seem to be strongly dependent on the shielding properties of the case and any other shielding e.g. mu-metal but its conceivable that under very specific conditions, an external antenna connected to ground might increase the balance of the shielding?

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11 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

 

what would be an appropriate measuring instrument?

an "E-meter" of course

 

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6 hours ago, Cornan said:

 

I am fine with any plausible answer how the grounding boxes works. Scientific or not. So far, do you think I've got more than the antenna idea from a scientific point of view? Even if this is not likely to me I am willing to put it to the test if I only knew how to. 

 

The manufacturers provide non-scientific answers. If they are plausible to you, then you are all set.

 

The science of electromagnetism is well established and has allowed our entire civilization to be transformed. The successful predictions made through the use of electronic theory are evident on a daily basis: electronic things work. Entire industries have been formed through the use of electronics. When I click on my phone button in the morning to turn it on and unlock it, I might pray just a little that the screen goes on, but generally I am allowed to go about my day without thinking too much about how my phone works because it has been engineered with electromagnetic theory as a foundation. So there are benefits to having a scientific explanation.

 

You need to draw a circuit/schematic.

 

People are discussing why there is only one connection to a device? There are circuit elements which have a single connection: an antennae is one, a capacitor is another -- the other side is connected to something else. So clearly certain electromagnetic waves can travel through an air or other material gap. An antennae allows a large air gap but even then there is a transmitter and receiver. The waves have to start somewhere and go somewhere. The fact that there isn't a drawn circuit which describes the behavior of the "grounding box" tells us that there isn't a scientific explanation (aside from antennae). Measurements themselves don't provide an explanation, the circuit does. Measurements may support or detract from a proposed explanation/circuit.

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48 minutes ago, mansr said:

A capacitor has two connections. Attach only one, and it won't do a thing. An antenna is also more accurately seen as one of a pair of connections, the other being earth or the other half of a dipole antenna.

Yes I should have stated much better: the point isn't that a cap could have only one connection (it doesn't) rather that an antenna should be seen as one of a pair of connections.

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44 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Ummm ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitance#Self-capacitance

No he stated it correctly. There are circuits as drawn but in reality the circuit is more complicated with stray & parasitic capacitances & inductances etc. even something as simple as a copper trace on a circuit board has a complex representation of inductors & capacitors.

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1 hour ago, kumakuma said:

 

It appears to be more of a box of sand than rocks. The workmanship reminds me of my daughter's first wood shop project:

 

http://www.monoandstereo.com/2015/12/entreq-tellus-passive-ground-system.html

 

That's f***ing brilliant!!! 

 

Do you think it could have dual use as a room treatment?

 

Is there a patent?

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42 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

 

But if you want a 'true' ground by your definition, the best thing to do is to bury your device into the ground, near a large metal pipe, attached by a very short run of a large gauge, cryogenically annealed gold wire

 

I prefer to listen to music while in a hot air balloon floating directly over the north pole, and do prefer a grounding box because earth ground is not practically available.

 

I have constructed a balloon basket whose floor is double layer of layered interspersed with tourmaline sand  

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3 minutes ago, lasker98 said:

 

No. What you're discussing is why they don't work. That's not what the thread title is asking. Maybe that's part of the problem around here? A reading comprehension epidemic?

 

Here is the issue: you are asking a religious question that has the appearance of a scientific question.

 

The answer to your question is that they work because you believe they work.

 

From a scientific point if view, people will require either a schematic or a disproof of the null hypothesis. The best schematic correlate is an antenna -- now prove that it's something other? But that's the scientific answer.

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2 minutes ago, lasker98 said:

 

No. That would be your answer. Not the answer.

 

Why should your unproven belief carry any more weight than my unproven belief, although my unproven believe is backed up by years of positive user feedback, where yours is backed up by.....?

I'm perfectly happy with unproven hypotheses. You tell me then: There are a group of people who believe something strongly and have believed for years. I am suggesting that this is a religious belief.

 

You are praying to a box. People pray to all sorts of things, candles, lights, trees, mountains, crystals. I think praying to a box filled with tourmaline sand is perfectly acceptable -- it is indeed special sand. I have no problem with religion, nor people that prefer red outhouses. nor silver automobiles. These are all perfectly fine preferences.

 

The belief does not have the characteristics of a scientific belief -- if you wish to ask a scientific question then at a very minimum you must submit to the requirement of falsifiability. So disprove the null hypothesis and that is how to give your belief scientific credence.

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10 minutes ago, christopher3393 said:

The antenna suggestion is clearly the best so far, other than the possibility that the listener, for whatever reasons, is perceiving "improvement" without there being any physical change in the environment to account for that improvemen

Antenna effect should not be blindly dismissed. Probably most all differences in analog cables can be broken down to capacitance & shielding -- shields are essentially antennas. Similarly twisted pairs operate on the principle that antenna effects cancel between each pair. See differential & common mode noise rejection.

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4 minutes ago, christopher3393 said:

BTW, I'm trouble by the dichotomy scientific knowledge / religious belief. I'd like to gently suggest that this may be fallacious.

Not sure why. I use religious belief as one I consider perfectly acceptable but not scientific. In science we first attempt to disprove. Not so in religion. That's why I suggest that pushback against an attempt to disprove is more religious than scientific. No value judgement intended.

 

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20 minutes ago, christopher3393 said:

And why are these audiophile beliefs considered to be "religious"? Just because they are "beliefs"? That seems quite wrong to me.

Ah no, "religious beliefs" are the archetype of a belief that one would not consider subject to falsifiability. 

 

I was using this as an example of beliefs which are very common, accepted, yet non scientific. (The complaint seems to be that people are talking about why X isn't true rather than why X is true, and I'm indicating that's how science works)