How DOES the grounding boxes work?

[Cornan]

16 minutes ago, mansr said:

Huh? If a substance is somehow made to release negative ions, there must be an equal build-up of positive ions within said substance. Where is it you suppose they would "return" to?

 

Well, then I'll guess that exessive positive ions will never create a problem, would they? If a positive charge must equal a negative charges the amount of positive ions will increase with the charge of the tourmaline stones.

[Cornan]

16 minutes ago, AJ Soundfield said:

Your box of rocks is floating. "Ground" not so much.

Out of curiosity, what perceived deficiency in your system was this bought to correct?

 

Originally, I just bought it out of curiosity. I actually bought the Entreq USB cables first, which I grounded to the GND screw on my AVM Evolutions integrated amp. Then I started to investigate the grounding boxes and built a couple myself which was never even close to Entreq Minimus that I eventually bought.

[marce]

46 minutes ago, lmitche said:

Here is a reference to a similar approach first using litzwire and then enhanced with connection to the negative terminal of a battery.

 

There are lots of single wire devices that make similar claims.

 

https://iamyuanwu.wordpress.com/audio/audio-direction-ltd-adl/adls-battery-ground-tweak/

 

Have fun!

Of course for these electron pools to work we have to discard the fact that electrons only move about 0.002mm/s so it would take them quite some time to get anywhere and thats just with a D.C. voltage when you get on to A.C. they just wiggle about a bit, so we can forget all these sort of tweaks

[marce]

56 minutes ago, lasker98 said:

 

 

If people can't understand how current can flow between 2 points even though there's no closed loop, then maybe some review of basic electrical theory may help. Don't know what else to say.

without a loop it cant, lots of things are at different potential differences, no current will flow between them unless a complete loop is formed.

[AJ Soundfield]

12 minutes ago, Cornan said:

 

Originally, I just bought it out of curiosity.

Ok. I was wandering what perceived audio deficiency would prompt someone to connect a box of rocks to their stereo, but mere curiosity fills the bill.

 

What were your DIY efforts? Like the original post copper stuff of the box of rocks business?

[Cornan]

9 minutes ago, AJ Soundfield said:

Ok. I was wandering what perceived audio deficiency would prompt someone to connect a box of rocks to their stereo, but mere curiosity fills the bill.

 

What were your DIY efforts? Like the original post copper stuff of the box of rocks business?

 

My DIY attempts was all over the place in the beginning. I started out with bentonite clay (cat sand) in a wooden box with copper plates and a speaker plug. My latest and best attempt (that I still have) was a 9v battery grounder embedded in tourmaline stones inside a pure silver box. Still not even close to Entreq Minimus though. ?

 

Here is my original drawing of the battery grounder. I just used bigger capacitor in the end.

 

 

[AJ Soundfield]

So no coffee?

 

What difference do you hear between your DIY efforts and the Entreq?

[89reksal]

5 minutes ago, marce said:

without a loop it cant, lots of things are at different potential differences, no current will flow between them unless a complete loop is formed.

 

Wrong. As stated multiple times previously, all that's required for current to flow is a voltage difference between 2 points and a path between the 2 points for current to flow. Once the voltage difference is gone, then current will no longer flow. I believe you may be thinking about continuous current flow within a closed circuit. Then of course a loop is required.

[Cornan]

3 minutes ago, AJ Soundfield said:

So no coffee?

 

What difference do you hear between your DIY efforts and the Entreq?

 

Well yes! My attempts worked, but I guess Entreqs long experiances in the field pays off. I own a cheaper Aucharm grounding box and between my attempt and the Aucharm it is a close shot.

The grounding boxes sort of sets the music free, making it way more relaxed and natural. It is a very appealing improvement once you've heard it.

[Jud]

47 minutes ago, lasker98 said:

Many engineers treat ground planes as if they were made of a superconductor rather than copper and assume that, no matter the current flowing in them

 

Right, they're talking about current flow in a circuit, and the performance of the ground plane for that circuit.  This in no way says you have current flow when there is no circuit, it's talking about best practice for design of ground planes in the context of circuit design.

[marce]

3 minutes ago, lasker98 said:

 

Wrong. As stated multiple times previously, all that's required for current to flow is a voltage difference between 2 points and a path between the 2 points for current to flow. Once the voltage difference is gone, then current will no longer flow. I believe you may be thinking about continuous current flow within a closed circuit. Then of course a loop is required.

No, I am thinking of basic electronics and conventional current, one wire will not pass current, the wave needs to flow before any current can be measured. You need two wires or at least a return path for current to flow. Draw a circuit of the box, there is one wire between the box and the component, because the wire is connected to a GND point on a component it will be at the same potential.

A light switch has one contact, for the positive line, the neutral is connected to the load, there is a potential difference of 230V a.c. approx, NO current flows down the neutral wire. This is the same it is a single wire floating, there is no return path. 

[Jud]

23 minutes ago, marce said:

Of course for these electron pools to work we have to discard the fact that electrons only move about 0.002mm/s so it would take them quite some time to get anywhere

 

Ah, but can you be completely certain of that? 

 

(I guess so, as long as you want no information about their momentum.)

[marce]

Certain of what Jud, electron drift velocity, yes they don't move very fast when being jiggled by an electric field.

What has there momentum got to do with it?

 

[marce]

This has some relevant information...

http://www.x2y.com/filters/TechDay09kr_hpa_Track2_1_Precision_Analog_Designs_Demand_GoodPCBLayouts _JohnWu.pdf

 

[89reksal]

1 minute ago, Jud said:

Right, they're talking about current flow in a circuit, and the performance of the ground plane for that circuit.  This in no way says you have current flow when there is no circuit, it's talking about best practice for design of ground planes in the context of circuit design.

 What I took it to be referring to was the potential for issues because ground planes may not have the same voltage at every point within the ground plane. If that's the case, wouldn't it make sense that by eliminating or reducing those differences, however that's achieved, either by improved design or changing the voltage somehow (grounding box?) at a specific point within the ground plane that had a big enough voltage difference compared to other parts of the ground plane, then the potential for issues would be reduced or eliminated? And shouldn't it follow that there could be an audible result form that reduction?

[89reksal]

9 minutes ago, marce said:

Draw a circuit of the box, there is one wire between the box and the component, because the wire is connected to a GND point on a component it will be at the same potential.

 

Let's take for an example (these are just random numbers for illustrative purposes only), that the voltage at the box end of the cable is 5 volts and at the component end of the cable the voltage is 4 volts. Are you trying to tell me that no current would flow between those points? You don't realize that current would indeed flow until the difference between those 2 points became low enough that current flow would stop?

 

That's the only point I'm trying to make. We're talking 2 different things You're talking closed circuits with continuous current flow, I'm talking transient current flow between 2 different potentials.

 

 

[Fokus]

7 minutes ago, lasker98 said:

 changing the voltage somehow (grounding box?) at a specific point within the ground plane that had a big enough voltage difference compared to other parts of the ground plane, then the potential for issues would be reduced or eliminated?

 

The cat litter box is connected to that one ground point that is the baddest of ground points in the circuit. How does the box know how much that point's potential deviates from 'ground'. How does the box know what 'ground' ideally is like? And once the box has dumped its load of electrons into said baddest point, how does it keep that point from deviating again, as the electrons, once set free, tend to run away?

 

This thread is priceless.

 

 

[marce]

There are techniques for limiting the effect of ground bounce with sensitive analogue signals, many already is various techniques when doing their own audio diy designs, the first and simplest is separate power and signal return paths. Don't forget also that that paper is meant more for really sensitive analogue stuff, where the signals can be very very small...

[Fokus]

4 minutes ago, lasker98 said:

 

Let's take for an example...

 

 

Take a piece of dry paper. Or a plastic foil.

 

Put a 9V battery on top of it, and a 1.5V battery next to it.

Connect the batteries' + terminals with a wire.

 

Measure the potential at the wire.

 

Oh, wait ... potential compared to what?

 

(Credits to Roberta Flack.)

[marce]

9 minutes ago, lasker98 said:

 

Let's take for an example (these are just random numbers for illustrative purposes only), that the voltage at the box end of the cable is 5 volts and at the component end of the cable the voltage is 4 volts. Are you trying to tell me that no current would flow between those points? You don't realize that current would indeed flow until the difference between those 2 points became low enough that current flow would stop?

 

That's the only point I'm trying to make. We're talking 2 different things You're talking closed circuits with continuous current flow, I'm talking transient current flow between 2 different potentials.

 

 

How do you get a potential difference at the cable ends? We are talking potential voltage here.

 

[marce]

3 minutes ago, Fokus said:

 

Take a piece of dry paper. Or a plastic foil.

 

Put a 9V battery on top of it, and a 1.5V battery next to it.

Connect the batteries' + terminals with a wire.

 

Measure the potential at the wire.

 

Oh, wait ... potential compared to what?

 

(Credits to Roberta Flack.)

Thank you, the example I was trying think off.

[89reksal]

2 minutes ago, Fokus said:

The cat litter box is connected to that one ground point that is the baddest of ground points in the circuit.

It's been said that experimentation is needed to find the best point with the system or component to connect to. I would take that to be the "baddest" point.

 

5 minutes ago, Fokus said:

How does the box know how much that point's potential deviates from 'ground'. How does the box know what 'ground' ideally is l

 

All the box is doing (based on my proposed theory) is providing a method of adjusting the voltage at that point. If the voltage from the box is different than the voltage of the connection point, current would flow until the voltage differences have been eliminated.

 

10 minutes ago, Fokus said:

And once the box has dumped its load of electrons into said baddest point, how does it keep that point from deviating again, as the electrons, once set free, tend to run away?

 

If it deviates enough, then wouldn't current again flow until the difference is eliminated? In effect maintaining that new adjusted voltage at a constant level? Much like some kind of self regulating process. Seems quite ingenious to me.

[Fokus]

I honestly hope you are not employed in any sector that remotely touches on electricity.

 

[marce]

As I said earlier electrons in the presence of an electric field travel at approx 0.002mm/s, there fore it would take them, so in 20 hours they will travel 150mm (6 inch) so there are no electrons rushing about, so no electron pool effect. Discarding the way out stuff we come back to a wire connected at one end, which gives us an antenna. If you read the John Wu power-point linked above, we are probably looking at conducted noise picked up bt the wire connected at one end only.

[marce]

9 minutes ago, lasker98 said:

It's been said that experimentation is needed to find the best point with the system or component to connect to. I would take that to be the "baddest" point.

 

 

All the box is doing (based on my proposed theory) is providing a method of adjusting the voltage at that point. If the voltage from the box is different than the voltage of the connection point, current would flow until the voltage differences have been eliminated.

 

 

If it deviates enough, then wouldn't current again flow until the difference is eliminated? In effect maintaining that new adjusted voltage at a constant level? Much like some kind of self regulating process. Seems quite ingenious to me.

It would be, but is not the case here.