GROUNDING

[barrows]

OMG, I just came across another review of a very expensive "Audiophile Grounding Box", and there was so much mis-information and outright lies (in an interview with the designer!) that it just about made my blood boil.

A quick few words on "grounding":

 

1.  If any audiophile is concerned about grounding, the very best thing one can do is use true balanced/differential components.  There is no reason to use single ended (RCA) components in a high end audio system anymore, as there are numerous choices one can purchase to avoid single ended circuitry.  And please, do not give me that old trope about how most components are not truly balanced internally even though they have XLR connectors, this is just not true in so many cases as to be silly.  Some components which offer true balanced circuitry:  Hypex, Purifi, Benchmark, PS Audio, Bricasti Design, Ayre, Aesthetix, Chord, Constellation, etc, etc, etc.  The list is long!  Additionally, contemporary DAC chips and phono cartridges both have balanced outputs standard.  With balanced signaling there is no audio circuit reference to 0 volts (or ground if you prefer)-in other words, the signals do not care what is on ground at all.  Balanced signals only reference the voltage difference between the two lines, neither of which is at ground.  So there's no ground "issue" with properly implemented balanced signaling.

 

2.  If you still insist on using RCA connected gears, stop reading now, you are on your own, and please feel free to purchase as many overly priced audiophile grounding accessories as you might choose to.  But your money would be better spent on balanced components in the first place.

 

3.  Use properly designed XLR cabling: a proper XLR cable has signal conductors for the pin 2 and 3 connections, surrounded by a shield which is connected at both ends to pin 1.  Nothing else should be connected to pin 1.  Some audiophile cable companies do not do this correctly, so check.  There should not be any wire connected to pin 1, pin 1 is shield.  Inside your components the XLR shell, and pin 1 should be connected directly to the chassis, this creates a continuous shield of the chassis-cable shield-and the subsequent chassis.

 

4.  If one pays attention to the above things, there is likely to be no "grounding issue" in the system.  But what about internally, and noise on ground planes, perhaps, especially in mixed signal components (specifically, DACs).  This depends highly on the skill of the DAC designer, and how they handle their signal routing, PCB design, etc.  Suffice it to say, that in a well designed DAC, done by a competent mixed signal designer, implemented in a balanced system context, there will be no issues.  Although some audiophile DACs appear to be designed by analog based engineers who may not have the requisite high speed signaling experience to implement proper PCB layout and grounding to avoid problems.  If your DAC responds to grounding tweaks, be very suspicious of the skills of its design.  Perhaps, in that case, take a look at the low level noise floor of the DAC in published measurements and see if it shows problems, and if it does, consider replacement with a better implementation by a competent mixed signal designer.

 

5.  If you play vinyl, insist on a phono stage (and turntable wiring) which can take advantage of the balanced output of phono cartridges.  It is absurd that phono stages are not always balanced, as with their high gain they likely have more to gain from balanced connection than any other component.

 

And finally, if you still insist that audiophile grounding boxes make a difference in your system, go back and figure out where the problem is instead of applying a very expensive "audiophile bandaid".

[barrows]

8 minutes ago, pas said:

3.  Use properly designed XLR cabling: a proper XLR cable has signal conductors for the pin 2 and 3 connections, surrounded by a shield which is connected at both ends to pin 1.  Nothing else should be connected to pin 1.  Some audiophile cable companies do not do this correctly, so check.  There should not be any wire connected to pin 1, pin 1 is shield.  Inside your components the XLR shell, and pin 1 should be connected directly to the chassis, this creates a continuous shield of the chassis-cable shield-and the subsequent chassis.

 

Hello Barrows - is the following diagram accurate to your statement above? Thanks in advance.

 

http://www.gothamaudiousa.com/productdata/11001.pdf

Yes, pro audio companies generally do this correctly, as their cables need to work noise free in long runs and in complex studio environments.  This cable is also star quad, which allows for further noise reduction.  Note though, that some star quad cables (not all) are higher in capacitance, and may reduce high frequency response because of that.

[barrows]

9 minutes ago, ASRMichael said:

I use Black Ravioli grounding boxes, connected to HDMI, RCA’s. With great results. 
 

My DAC has XLR connectors, I use the RCA’s, why? Because my Amp is an unbalanced design. My amp with accept XLR, according to the designer if I use XLR is needs to converted back. 

As mentioned, if you use single ended connections, you can ignore the rest of my comments.

[barrows]

1 hour ago, jiminlogansquare said:

@barrows, where do USB cables fit into all this? I have one with an attached “grounding cable” the utility of which I never understood.

The answer is, it depends.  Most good USB inputs on DACs these days are isolated, so the ground has no influence on the DAC circuitry, in which case I would not concern myself at all with the USB cable ground.  If the DAC does not isolate the USB ground, then you hope that the DAC designer knew what they were doing, in which case there is no cause for concern either.  If the DAC designer did not know what they were doing, get another DAC.  If messing with the  USB ground changes things for the better, get another DAC, as this is an indication that the designer did not know what they were doing, and there are likely other things in there which are compromised as well.

[barrows]

17 hours ago, ASRMichael said:

Now I know what single ended means. 👍

???

[barrows]

18 hours ago, R1200CL said:

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=no&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fsenorc.no%2F%3Fp%3D226&sandbox=1
 

https://senorc.no/?p=226
 

Not sure why the above is here?  Ground loops of some amount are unavoidable, yes, they can be reduced somewhat by careful addressing of the issues, but especially loop currents at high frequencies are always going to be present to some degree.  This is just another reason to choose balanced circuitry which does not care about a ground loop.

The point I am trying to make in this topic, is that adding extra wires to one's components, going to some kind of box which claims to solve grounding issues, is not the way to solve system problems or improve system performance.  In many case this approach will just make things worse, as adding extra wires is also adding antennas which can be a source of additional noise.

 

The above from Mr. Stein also contains some bad information, such where he suggests that single ended connections contain only one signal wire.  This is not true, there can never be any signal on a single wire, as there is no voltage difference on a single wire, or current return path.  But, if one does choose to use single ended connections, then more attention must be paid to grounding issues, as the signal wiring is influenced by ground, unlike with true balanced signaling.

 

There is some good reading here on the subject:

 

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

 

[barrows]

Just now, ASRMichael said:

As I said, I now know what single ended means. I didn’t know the term until you said it. Excuse my ignorance. 

No worries, have you tried running the XLR connections in your set up ever?  I am not sure how the inout stage in the ASR is configured, it may take advantage of balanced input, eventhough it converts it to single ended at some point: if so using a balanced connection woudl still be an advantage.

If it converts balanced to single ended through a summing circuit, the balanced connection would have an advantage, if it just uses half of the balanced signal, then there woudl probably be no advantage.

[barrows]

27 minutes ago, lucretius said:

 

Thanks for the list.  Hypex and Purify are DIY and the others, except for Benchmark, are somewhat pricey.  I was wondering if you could mention others, especially "affordable" components.  Thanks in advance. 

I do not really know what "affordable" means, as it is relative.  But, there are plenty of Hypex and Purifi based amps at prices that I consider extremely reasonable for the quality of sound they provide, like Nord, Apollon, VTV, etc.  PS Audio makes balanced products in their "stellar" series which are not all that spends.  Benchmark makes balanced amps and DACs which are not that severely priced, and I am sure there are many others.  My list was just meant to show some examples and not meant to be exhaustive by any means.

[barrows]

As most companies making these type of products do not really disclose what they are doing, it is hard to evaluate them from any technical perspective.  Most components are already grounded by their AC cables, and good AC cables include a nice stout (high gauge) ground wire with very low impedance to wherever they are plugged in.  It makes little sense to attach an additional "ground" to a component as this then makes for two grounds, or even three!

Best practice for grounding a system would be to use a single power distributor or conditioner, which all the components plug into, using quality power cables with stout ground wires in them.  Then do not attach additional ground conductors.  It nearly always going to be better to have the system wiring be as simple as possible.

If one is concerned about keeping the components at the same ground potential, one should rely on the power cable connection for this, not some additional wiring, and have all the power cables connect to the same distribution point.

 

I keep my system simple, everything (except sub) is plugged into a single Cardas Nautilus power distributor.  The Nautilus does have heavy gauge inductors on the ground wiring only, which serve to reduce any very high frequency currents circulating on the ground, but the inductors do not hinder current flow at all anywhere near the audio range.  The sub is plugged into the same wall outlet (Cardas) as the Nautilus power strip.  All my (DIY) power cables have stout, 11.5 or 10 AWG ground wires to insure low impedance.  The sub is the only component connected by RCA cables, and it has the capability to lift its ground connection to the wall if necessary (I leave it grounded, as I tested both ways and there are no issues).  The Ethernet audio feed coms to the system over optical cable, so it avoids electrical connection to the other computer gears (elsewhere in the home).

[barrows]

2 hours ago, R1200CL said:

I wouldn’t mind if you could go into Nordost’s boxes, and do some explanations. I personally think they only do a ground lift and ensure to equalize possible possible variations in potentials.

 

I would say, in regards to Nordost's grounding box, on their website description, they do suggest it is applicable for those systems which do not already have a good ground.  At least they are being honest about their grounding unit's purpose.  One could conclude from what they say, that a system which already has a sound AC ground point will not benefit from their grounding unit. 

[barrows]

9 minutes ago, fas42 said:

There are two mechanisms that one has to be concerned with, when talking of "grounding". First is the obvious one, which conventional circuit techniques deal with - and then there is static; build up of charge because of parasitic behaviours of materials. To date, no-one really understands the real origin of static; but there is a huge array of methods to try and control this happening.

 

I suspect many of these boxes, etc, are to do with controlling some of the behaviours of static build up - but because there is very incomplete understanding of how static occurs in audio systems, and how to discharge it, in a predictable way, there are lots of "suck it and see" devices out there.

 

The trick is to not mix up the two electrical behaviours being managed - otherwise, confusion and arguments just follow ...

Static charge requires an ungrounded zone to "build up" in.  Anything which is properly grounded to low impedance cannot develop a static charge in the first place.

[barrows]

53 minutes ago, fas42 said:

The key phrase there is "properly grounded"

Achieving a properly grounded system need not be difficult:

 

For a fraction of the price of any "magical grounding box", a licensed electrician can install a dedicated AC line, on a 20 A circuit, of 10 AWG romex and check your AC ground.  Plug a decently made power distribution strip (or high quality power conditioner) of your choice into that strip, and your components into that strip, with good quality power cables and your system will be properly grounded.  The only exceptions to this are if your components are poorly designed.  If your components are that poorly designed, they should be exchanged, no one should try to "fix" poorly designed components by adding overly expensive, gimmicks (audiophile grounding boxes) to their system.

Now, I understand some renters, and apartment dwellers, may have to resort to other approaches, but homeowners have no excuses here.  Sort out your system AC delivery and ground quality in the most basic and straightforward way, and there is no need, and no advantage, to adding expensive gimmicks.

[barrows]

3 minutes ago, jiminlogansquare said:

@barrows this sounds reasonable to me (and is basically what I have done), although how necessary is 10AWG Romex, which is rated at 30 amps? My dedicated 20-amp circuits are wired with 12AWG Romex, which was recommended by the electrician who installed them. Thanks.

There might be an advantage to 10 AWG, as it provides lower impedance to ground, but I am not necessarily saying you should redo it...  Of course the longer the run, the more advantage there would be for 10 AWG.

[barrows]

If one first has no understanding of how their system is grounded, it is folly to just add an additional ground wire, which then runs to a "box" of indeterminate nature, and expect an improvement.  There might be a sonic change, likely caused by the antenna effect mentioned in some previous posts-but this effect would certainly be considered an artifact (adding RFI to your component(s).

Now if you live in a home without a proper ground, perhaps ancient wiring with a two wire system, where you know there is no ground at all, perhaps adding some type of "virtual ground" could be advantageous, but even in this case I take pause...  What could be in the magical box which allows it to be a low impedance path?  For a path to be low impedance, current has to be able to flow, but a box of magical materials does not allow for any current flow unless it is connected to an actual low impedance "drain", like the actual earth.  Even if the magic materials in the box act like a "sponge" somehow sucking in current by a means unknown to contemporary physics, they would only do so until they were charged, and then they would dis-continue to operate, as there is nowhere for the charge to go to.

 

If one adds a "grounding box" to a system which is already properly grounded via the components' AC cabling, that is just wrong practice, as you now have two ground references: one through the AC cables and one, so called virtual.

 

Note again that Nordost recommends their QKore ground unit for systems without a proper ground:

 

"A poor, or “unclean”, ground causes more performance imperfections than most people realize. Without an effective ground point, the entire foundation of your sound system becomes jeopardized—and unfortunately, most listening rooms simply do not have access to a designated line, attached to a ground rod. In these instances, a simple, effective, and internal option is needed: Nordost’s QKORE Ground Unit."

 

The quote is taken directly from the Nordost website. 

 

So, Nordost appears to be saying that if one has a poor ground to begin with, the Qkore can help.  My point is that the better solution would be to provide a good ground if one's is poor.  But I would take exception to the notion that: "most listening rooms do not have access to a dedicated line..."  If one is a homeowner, it is more affordable (and effective) to have an electrician install a dedicated line, and to make sure the system is properly grounded to the home's ground rod, than it is to purchase a (less effective) "virtual ground" box.  

[barrows]

29 minutes ago, ASRMichael said:

@barrows you should build one & give us a review?

 

nice to hear someone else using ground rods for safety & single ground, just like me. we’ll let’s not get into that again! 😂

Hahaha!  While I am a big believer in the possible effects of various damping compounds in their ability to reduce RF energy (noise reduction, in other words), these type of compounds only work in the presence of a current.  With only a single wire running from a component to a box, there can be no current, because current requires a return path to run on.  If one runs multiple wires to a box like this, connected to various different components, and then one expects current to be flowing from one component to the next, well one has just induced a ground loop then, and thta actually causes problems, and certainly will not help sound quality.

I actually use various compounds similar to this, and also similar to what Furutech terms "NCF", and I have a Furutech NCF IEC in my amplifier as well.  But I use these types of compounds in the direct area where high currents are running (typically AC input wiring in components and AC power cabling), where, hence there is a large EM field, and a fair amount of radiated RF energy.  In the presence of large currents, and high amounts of RF, certain crystalline compounds which have piezoelectric effects can reduce RF noise energy a bit, and can improve sound quality-but in the example in the video, there is no possibility of current, so no EM field or high degree of RF energy.

These crystalline materials have no ability to "draw in" or "attract" noise to them.  As well, this video has nothing to do with grounding, and calling such a thing a "grounding box" is a misnomer.  

[barrows]

I try to be open minded when it comes to some more esoteric approaches to better sound.  I have heard crystal based products, like Furutech's NCF, make a difference.  And I have had more than a few experiences where things which I at first thought could make no difference (like a super low phase noise Ethernet clock vs a merely good one) actually did make a meaningful sonic difference.  But in this case, where it technically just cannot do anything (at least not anything good, the antenna effect might be able to produce some additional "air" artifact) I will call it for what it is.

[barrows]

3 minutes ago, fas42 said:

What's being confused is the need to have an obvious return path ... take good ol' lightning - massive, massive currents flow; enough to blow up things that get in the way... so, where's the nice, neat return piece of copper wire connecting the earth to the cloud, elsewhere in the picture, hmmm ... ? Gotta have that for the return current to flow, right? 🤪

 

Sometimes, how voltages and currents work is not like the simple pictures of circuits in textbooks - nature does its own thing, always trying to stabilise differences of potentials, however they may arise. And sometimes the materials in the picture help that stabilisation process ....

Lightning is the result of the potential difference between the charge build up in the clouds and the actual ground (earth).  It is an actual example of the flow to a low impedance: the earth itself.  The case shown in the video has no low impedance point, the box of crystalline material is not at a lower impedance then the component it is connected to.

Unless you know of some physics of which I am not aware, there is no way a current will flow towards that box from an audio component=if you do know of some mechanism which would allow current to flow towards that box, please educate me.

[barrows]

21 minutes ago, Speedskater said:

Static electricity is one of the first things covered in Electricity 101.

 

For us, the only time it's a concern is when plugging in sensitive circuits or computer cards.

I disagree, surely we can all agree that static build up and discharge in vinyl LPs is an issue, and that de-static treatments to LPs can be beneficial.  Probably a bit more esoteric is whether static buildup on the dielectrics of audio cabling is an issue, or not (triboelectric effects), but many rather sober engineers such as Bruno Putzeys believe it can be.  I suspect it is ill advised to summarily dismiss static E effects as not having at least the potential (haha) to be a problem for high end audio systems.

But of course, proper actual grounding (not mytho/virtual "ground boxes") is one of the things which mitigates static E problems in the first place, hence grounding wrist straps, etc. 

[barrows]

4 minutes ago, fas42 said:

electrical field is experienced by them

There is no electrical field, that is why it cannot "work".  These crystalline compounds indeed "do things" when they are in the presence of high levels of RF energy or EM energy.  But there is none of that here because there is no current.  These compounds need an energy input to have any effect.

These same, or similar, elements and compounds, do have effects which can be beneficial when applied in a region where there is large current flow and an associated EM field, such as with AC power cabling or outlets, like what Furutech does.

[barrows]

6 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

The energy input is from the components which they are connected to, that they are "grounding" - those parts,which should be at zero volts with respect to "earth", at every possible frequency, may in fact be quite electrically noisy, with respect to the air in the room - because, the conventional grounding is not 'perfect'. So, the box of tricks is a parallel path to "ground"- the electrical field they experience is that by the frequencies which do not see a low impedance via the normal copper paths.

Yeah, no.

 

[barrows]

As one who has been paid to listen test components, and one who earns hie living helping to develop audio components, I certainly understand the importance of listening evaluations.  On the other hand, listening evaluations without a technical understanding of what is going on as well are ill advised and will waste huge amounts of time following down paths which lead nowhere but to an attempt to solving of problems by adding additional problems, resulting in systems which balance inherent flaws with other flaws, and up entirely flawed.

In order to build good sounding, accurate, hi fidelity playback systems it is necessary to both listen and to understand the technical aspects of what one is hearing, without both one is lost.

[barrows]

4 hours ago, ASRMichael said:

We don’t know what we don’t know.

While I do agree, somewhat, with the above, it is very important that we do understand much, much more about what is important for audio playback (technically) than what we do not.

The most important thing is not to make the mistake of dismissing the things which we do understand, just because we may not know everything.

I see many people, often, apparently, with little to no technical understanding of what does or can matter, advocating for things which cannot possibly matter, and defending these approaches with the trope: "we do not understand how audio playback works"-well, speak for yourself.  We do understand most things which affect audio playback performance.  The danger of this approach is that one acts blindly, akin to playing darts with a blindfold on-one might hit the target occasionally, but you are just as likely to miss completely.  Without a least some technical understanding of what is gong on, one is likely to "fix" a "problem" by adding another problem.  The classic and most simple example of this error is the person with a tipped up sounding system (for this example, the real cause of the tipped up sound is poor loudspeaker design, which is allowing the tweeter to operate too close to its resonant frequency).  The audiophile with little understanding of the cause of their actual problem might "fix" it by adding a high capacitance speaker cable, which actually rolls off the high frequency response.  Now the system might be more listenable, but all the appropriate high frequency air is missing.  The proper approach would look for the cause of the problem, and actually fix the cause (the loudspeaker)-when system building just adds mistake after mistake, after mistake, the system resolution and playback performance suffers.

[barrows]

4 hours ago, Summit said:

An earth box is made to quickly drain the electrical system of excess electricity.

The above is entirely in error.  If you disagree, please explain the force which allows any energy to flow to a "ground box" attached to a component's ground by a single electrical wire.  There is no force which woudl make any energy, of any type "drain" to a box which is not low impedance.

[barrows]

31 minutes ago, PeterG said:

we call this the scientific method.

No, that is not the scientific method.  the scientific method involves:

A theory, perhaps supported by an observation, followed by an experiment to prove or disprove the theory, empirically.

 

There is no empirical evidence to support the theory which you have, therefore this is not the scientific method.  If you would like to actually prove the theory, show us the measurements of noise reduction of a "virtual ground" box vs. a system which is well grounded through its AC cables.

[barrows]

12 minutes ago, MarkusBarkus said:

You could solder a wire to an RCA plug and save some money. You could try different lengths, composition, gauge of wire and report on the effects. 

I agree that doing such could make a system sound different.  The only actual reason this could make for different sound though, is that the wire is acting as an antenna, picking up airborne RF, and polluting the component with that RF noise.  That noise would be a detriment to sound quality (defined as reproducing what is on the recording, and not adding anything else, any addition is an artifact).  One of the ways to improve sound quality is to make the system less effected by external influences (vibration, AC line noise, RF interferences, etc)-the last thing one wants to do is to introduce more interferences.