Grounding

[Confused]

17 hours ago, Speedskater said:

The above Russ Andrews paper is a mix of good stuff, stuff that needs a lot of editing (of errors) and totally wrong stuff.

That's much like his product range too ....   🙂

[ASRMichael]

Does anyone have a earth/ground spike in their garden? 
 

My local Electrician has just installed dedicated mains with its own separate earthing to ground spike/rod.
 

I appreciate the target is 0v, but not realistic I’m told.
 

what would be a good target reading to hit? Once I have Reference point, I can start planning on Earth Ground pit using magnesium sulfar materials.  
 

I’m in uk

[ASRMichael]

Electrician has just taken a reading & said ground spike is reading 25v / ohms. Is that good/bad?

[PeterG]

On 8/22/2020 at 5:25 AM, Confused said:

I have heard it said that "audiophile" grounding boxes such as the Entreq and similar are doing nothing more than acting as an antenna, which does make sense to me from a technical perspective

 

I don't know Entreq, but I don't think you would have heard this said from a person who has tried an audiophile grounding box or other power conditioning from a good manufacturer.  OTOH, you may have heard this from a bitter armchair quarterback with suppositions from their engineering class 30 years ago and no actual knowledge of the product in question.  Do you really think the engineers at Nordost, Shunyata, Audioquest, et al have not considered all the issues that might occur to a hobbyist sitting at home?

 

Like all things in high end audio, you should try them in a risk-free way, then let your ears decide.

[Confused]

1 hour ago, PeterG said:

 

I don't know Entreq, but I don't think you would have heard this said from a person who has tried an audiophile grounding box or other power conditioning from a good manufacturer.  OTOH, you may have heard this from a bitter armchair quarterback with suppositions from their engineering class 30 years ago and no actual knowledge of the product in question.  Do you really think the engineers at Nordost, Shunyata, Audioquest, et al have not considered all the issues that might occur to a hobbyist sitting at home?

 

Like all things in high end audio, you should try them in a risk-free way, then let your ears decide.

I did not mention power conditioning, which is something entirely different to grounding boxes.  Plus, as far as I know none of the well respected manufacturers you listed above offer a grounding box.  Maybe that does hint at something?

[Confused]

3 hours ago, Confused said:

I did not mention power conditioning, which is something entirely different to grounding boxes.  Plus, as far as I know none of the well respected manufacturers you listed above offer a grounding box.  Maybe that does hint at something?

I need to correct my own post.  I see that Nordost do indeed offer a ground box device, however this differs from the Entreq approach as the Nordost item does actually require a connection to ground.  So whilst the Entreq devices are  technically an antenna, the Nordost item is not. 

[One and a half]

14 hours ago, ASRMichael said:

Electrician has just taken a reading & said ground spike is reading 25v / ohms. Is that good/bad?

Is the new ground spike bonded to the existing ground spike?

[sandyk]

15 hours ago, ASRMichael said:

what would be a good target reading to hit?

 

Telstra (Australia) had a maximum resistance of 30 ohms for their Payphones and customers P.A.B.X installations, and this wasn't always easy to achieve in some areas. It used to be measured from the local Telephone Exchange .,

Some of the linesmen appeared to achieve improved readings after a liquid lunch. 😉

[ASRMichael]

2 hours ago, One and a half said:

Is the new ground spike bonded to the existing ground spike?

No i have completely isolated from my house ground (in theory no neighbours polluting me) , now just using ground spike. 

[ASRMichael]

To help my question. See what Electricians have done. 

 

As you can see the Earth spike is 25ohms, presume I want to get this down low as possible to 5ohms or something?

 

 

[MarkusBarkus]

4 hours ago, ASRMichael said:

As you can see the Earth spike is 25ohms, presume I want to get this down low as possible to 5ohms or something?

@ASRMichael  caveat: it has been decades since I have done this stuff professionally.

 

That said, I don't recall ever having a zero ohm or even single digit ohm readings in residential configurations.

 

I believe 25 ohms is considered a *very* good grounding with the ground rod scenario. Lower is "better," but mostly theoretically so. It will likely change with soil moisture content, mineral variations, etc.

 

Commercial requirements for extremely low ohm readings are expensive to implement, and usually involve grids, etc.

 

That has been my, admittedly dated, experience. I'll follow the thread to see if someone with more "current" knowledge has an updated solution.

 

BTW: how and where the reading was made should be expected to yield variations. Per above, testing after a "liquid lunch" helps both moisture and mineral content in the soil.

[PeterG]

19 hours ago, Confused said:

I need to correct my own post.  I see that Nordost do indeed offer a ground box device, however this differs from the Entreq approach as the Nordost item does actually require a connection to ground.  So whilst the Entreq devices are  technically an antenna, the Nordost item is not. 

I own the Nordost QKore grounding system.  I don't know if you count plugging into the wall outlet as connection to ground, or if you are referring only to an independent connection to ground.  There is no independent connection to ground.  The QKore does work with their QBase power strip, but I'm pretty sure the Kore is grounding the Base, not vice versa; and that the Kore does not require any grounding at all.  In any event the Nordost QKore and Qbase made an excellent and pronounced improvement in my system compared to relying only on stock power cables.  The noise floor dropped; detail, imaging, soundstage all much better

[Confused]

1 hour ago, PeterG said:

I own the Nordost QKore grounding system.  I don't know if you count plugging into the wall outlet as connection to ground, or if you are referring only to an independent connection to ground.  There is no independent connection to ground.  The QKore does work with their QBase power strip, but I'm pretty sure the Kore is grounding the Base, not vice versa; and that the Kore does not require any grounding at all.  In any event the Nordost QKore and Qbase made an excellent and pronounced improvement in my system compared to relying only on stock power cables.  The noise floor dropped; detail, imaging, soundstage all much better

The Nordost QKore was completely off my radar until yesterday.  I had a quick look at their website yesterday and spotted it, and yes, I was referring to the connection to the power strip.  I had assumed this connected to ground, but may have got this wrong?  I only had a very quick look yesterday and had not fully worked out its configuration.  In some respects it reminds me of the CAD Ground Controls, but I would need to study further to confirm this is the case. 

 

It does look like an interesting product though, I will study it in some more detail when I get the time, but meanwhile thanks for the clarification above.

[barrows]

On 8/22/2020 at 4:57 PM, fas42 said:

Within the rig itself, every single part of the overall circuit that is supposed to be at 0 volts, should really, really be at 0 volts, no matter what! This is the hard part ... making sure that no matter what noise is floating around, or what currents are flowing, and no matter how high a frequency you're worried about, that this "perfect" reference point is actually that - as soon as one 0 volts is not really the same "0 volts" somewhere else, then you have a problem.

Yes, that is a "nice" sentiment, but in the real world this never happens, especially at higher frequencies.  What makes these problems worse is that many high end manufacturers do not agree, or even, sometimes, understand what "ground" is and what it might be!  

Audiophile "grounding boxes" are one of the worst examples of this.  Some of them appear to propose to be "virtual" "grounds", even though many of them do not connect to Earth (or AC ground pin, and on to earth, etc)!  And then they suggest these will "drain" noise from your system, well ah hmmm... perhaps via the antenna method suggested by JS, but this will only happen in an occasional case, and the makers of these boxes have no idea what the wiring of the components they are to be used with might be (considering the weird configurations I have seen in many high end products).

 

Suffice it to say, that for components with a ground pin (presumably connected to the metal chassis internally by a short, high gauge wire), best practice is to make sure the power cable allows for a nice low impedance path for this ground to the home AC ground.  Additionally, it is also a very good idea for every component of a system, to have the same ground connection point, such as a single power conditioner or distribution strip, as this will help to the different components at least be close to the same 0 volt ground reference (at least at low frequencies), which may be enough to reduce circulating ground currents to where they present no problems.  But at high frequencies, there will still be issues...

 

Best solution ever to ground "problems" is differential signaling which does not really use the 0 volt (aka, sort of, ground) as a reference.  Properly designed differential signaling is indifferent to "ground".

 

If interested in learning something, this is some good reading:

 

https://www.hypex.nl/img/upload/doc/an_wp/WP_The_G_word.pdf

 

The other alternative is to float the entire system, this can actually work well if it does need to connect to things which have to be grounded (earthed), such as a cable TV connection, or Satellite dish.  I know of one very well known high end manufacturer which does this, probably not coincidentally, this manufacturer often recommends using their products in a full system.  This approach only works if every component floats with no earth connection, and with every component being competently designed to the UL standard which allows for this (for safety), I think that standard is UL class 2, but i could be mis-remembering so do not quote me.

[fas42]

52 minutes ago, barrows said:

Yes, that is a "nice" sentiment, but in the real world this never happens, especially at higher frequencies.

 

Which is one of the reasons why very simple systems can do well - "everything in one box" thinking. My current setup uses just 2 double insulated devices, only connected via an optical cable - immediately, a whole raft of issues vanishes. 

 

The high end audio industry is dancing in a tight embrace with its consumers - they need each other, to operate in a world somewhat insulated 😉 from more rational thinking ... if one chooses to step outside the tangled, complex web of concepts that permeates that scene, then excellent value for money outcomes are possible.

[fas42]

A nice summary that I just came across of what one is dealing with, if one wants 0V everywhere,

 

https://interferencetechnology.com/the-equipotential-plane-that-isnt/

 

[sandyk]

2 hours ago, fas42 said:

My current setup uses just 2 double insulated devices, only connected via an optical cable

 Are you able to use Coax SPDIF ?

[R1200CL]

On 8/26/2020 at 6:19 PM, MarkusBarkus said:

It will likely change with soil moisture content, mineral variations, etc.

That’s correct. 

[R1200CL]

 

 

https://translate.google.no/translate?hl=no&sl=no&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fsenorc.no%2F%3Fp%3D226

 

 

[fas42]

3 hours ago, sandyk said:

 Are you able to use Coax SPDIF ?

 

Yes - but I want to see how well the Toslink holds up first ... the rig is too sensitive to mains noise at the moment  - once I'm happy with the robustness of the setup in that regard, I might start comparing input options.

[ASRMichael]

@barrows

 

In your opinion, which one do you think would be best?

 

1) Separate earth Rod/spike  for all HIFI Ground. Not connected to property ground. Resistance from earth rod/spike say is 10ohms

 

Or

 

2) Connect HiFI to property ground (bonded/Neutral) 0.25Ohms

 

I've read so much there is different views, lower resistance is obviously better but not at the expense of isolating your hifi ground from your property.  

[R1200CL]

@ASRMichael

Here is a very nice and advanced 30 pages about grounding. 
 

https://m.eet.com/media/1114898/duff_ch_5.pdf

 

(I google “frequencies in grounding“, so you will find a lot interesting Information first page of returned results). 

Here is another search that should help you as well understand the topic of grounding. 
 

[barrows]

3 hours ago, ASRMichael said:

@barrows

 

In your opinion, which one do you think would be best?

 

1) Separate earth Rod/spike  for all HIFI Ground. Not connected to property ground. Resistance from earth rod/spike say is 10ohms

 

Or

 

2) Connect HiFI to property ground (bonded/Neutral) 0.25Ohms

 

I've read so much there is different views, lower resistance is obviously better but not at the expense of isolating your hifi ground from your property.  

It has been a long time before I have looked this all up, but I am pretty sure number 1 is not allowed in the US.  As I recall (but consult a licensed electrician before you quote me), is that a single, detached, home, can only have a single earth point, and that having two different earth posts connected to same home AC power system would be dangerous.  If one can run an additional service line to the home from the Transformer, and then have a completely separate AC system for audio, with its own junction box, etc, that would likely be ideal, and then one could probably have a dedicated earth rod for that.

 

I really do not believe the notion that noise "drains" to ground, that by some mysterious force noise will be sucked away from the system by a ground.  I feel the important thing is that every component sees an equal impedance to ground to avoid circulating currents at low frequencies (no matter what there will be circulating currents to some degree).  Then i feel one wants to choose good components with well designed and implemented power supplies, which are mostly immune to line noises, and then, a good AC line conditioner can be a good idea (but these to be chosen to suit the conditions in the system, as the quality and noise on the AC line is different at every location).  Best way to avoid ground noise problems is differential signaling, with properly designed circuits.  I do  a fair amount of DIY componentry, and am also willing to mod even very high end gear to make sure the internal wiring is set up to avoid ground noise issues.  A single run, dedicated line to the system is a very good way to avoid differing ground impedances, if one's system really requires more than 20 A, and therefore two lines, make sure the runs are as equal as possible (same length, same wire, well done terminations at the junction box).

 

I would recommend reading what Bruno Putzeys wrote in the paper above, differential signaling, does right, basically makes the system immune to what might, or not, be going on in the ground line, and reduces many kinds of noise issues.  I choose components which use differential signaling, always.  I also use ground chokes, which reduce high frequency noise circulating on thee ground (just in case...), while remaining low impedance at DC. 

[MarkusBarkus]

1 hour ago, barrows said:

A single run, dedicated line to the system is a very good way to avoid differing ground impedances...

@Barrows, the Putzey paper was informative. Thanks. 
 

I have a dedicated line for audio with a PI Audio power correction UberBuss powering the gear.

 

I recently ran a homerun to the IT closet wherein resides the cable modem, a couple of Cisco switches, WiFi router and your PS for the Optical Module. PS is a gem, BTW. Very slick.

 

I think that network gear on a dedicated, but separate run from the audio will be OK (still have to tie into the panel) because I'm fiber from the network closet to the basement audio gear (optical into EtherReGen, etc.).
 

I've isolated both "sets" of gear from each other with the fiber.

 

You read things that way, Barrows? Bueller? Anyone? Thank you...

[sandyk]

10 hours ago, ASRMichael said:

1) Separate earth Rod/spike  for all HIFI Ground. Not connected to property ground. Resistance from earth rod/spike say is 10ohms

 

 That low a resistance is not normally achievable without a network of connected earth rods, and will substantially degrade under prolonged dry conditions. 25 ohms is a more realistic target based on my testing experience in this area with Telstra (Au.)