GROUNDING

[fas42]

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 ...

[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.

[PeterG]

I am not burdened by significant technical expertise, but I am an empiricist.

 

I have a Nordost QKore/QBase system--it was damn pricey, but it improved my sound quality dramatically.  Not some subtle...I need to do ABX...I could be biased...kind of way--a striking change in noise floor reduction, detail, imaging.  Anyone would notice it immediately.

 

I have tried XLR cables, both with and without the QKore/QBase.  I cannot distinguish a change in sound from my Transparent Super RCAs, even going to almost 2X the RCA price to get Super XLRs.

 

For those with real interest, I recommend doing what any smart shopper would do for any high end component--take a demo home for a few days.  I expect you'll smile immediately

[fas42]

12 minutes ago, barrows said:

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.

 

The key phrase there is "properly grounded" - static can be a weird thing; I've had many adventures, 🙂, trying to sort out what's going on - the grounding boxes "appear" to be helping in some cases ... I haven't resorted to a DIY version of the idea to see if it can help, in any situation I've had - but it's possible that the commercial ones are of benefit.

[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.

[jiminlogansquare]

@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.

[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.

[jiminlogansquare]

28 minutes ago, barrows said:

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.

The run is abut 85 feet from outlet (in attic) to breaker panel (in basement). A grounding tester plug of the type home inspectors use shows it is grounded, which I assumed meant impedance to ground below 25 ohms per the Code. I don’t have a practical means to numerically measure the impedance of the ground, however. 
 

EDIT: The electrician did not state anything about the grounding of the circuits or the impedance of the grounding, other than to assure me that they were, in fact, grounded, which I have confirmed using a home inspector’s ground tester plug.  I don’t want to overthink this ...

[wanta911]

Both my DAC and integrated amp are fully balanced and I can use balanced XLR or single ended RCA. Apart from the 6dB volume difference I cannot distinguish any difference in SQ between them using cables that are the same brand and model, so I assume I have no issue to fix.

 

I agree that using XLR interconnects is the "safe" option and maybe earthing problems are more prevalent with the USA AC supply as sandyk suggested?

 

I have no experience with grounding boxes.....but I strongly suspect it is just an absurdly overpriced box of dirt and wire praying on the audio nervosa of the audiophile world. I also think that people have probably heard a difference using them, as attaching a wire (antenna) to your setup would more than likely introduce a level of noise or distortion, which can sound euphonic to some.

[fas42]

45 minutes ago, wanta911 said:

I have no experience with grounding boxes.....but I strongly suspect it is just an absurdly overpriced box of dirt and wire praying on the audio nervosa of the audiophile world. I also think that people have probably heard a difference using them, as attaching a wire (antenna) to your setup would more than likely introduce a level of noise or distortion, which can sound euphonic to some.

 

Wires acting as antennae can be a problem, and may add noise which "sounds better" to some people  - easy way to test this ... just  add bits of wire to the system that copy how the grounding box is meant to be set up - but with no actual box in place! Does this change things? Does it make it better? ... Simple experiments can tell one a lot - just do them without expecting anything; in fact, best policy is to have the attitude, when setting one up, is that what you are going to do will no effect - the idea is that the setup has to really convince you, "against your wishes", that indeed the SQ has altered ...

[PeterG]

1 hour ago, fas42 said:

 

Wires acting as antennae can be a problem, and may add noise which "sounds better" to some people  - easy way to test this ... just  add bits of wire to the system that copy how the grounding box is meant to be set up - but with no actual box in place! Does this change things? Does it make it better? ... Simple experiments can tell one a lot - just do them without expecting anything; in fact, best policy is to have the attitude, when setting one up, is that what you are going to do will no effect - the idea is that the setup has to really convince you, "against your wishes", that indeed the SQ has altered ...

Yes--it is a very simple zero-cost experiment to test a grounding system.  Drive to your dealer, plug it in, listen.  I'm pretty sure it took me less time to hear that it was a terrific improvement than it has taken some to develop master theses of why these will not work.

[Blackmorec]

I invited our regional distributor to come around and install his earthing system to see what effect it had on sound quality. He arrived with 2 large and a third very large wooden box where the brand name appeared to be literally branded into the wood and a plethora of different cables, with various terminations and some fairly exotic prices. We listened to a few track to get a benchmark then added the various boxes and cables. 

We replayed the tracks and the dealer looked at me gleefully and said, ‘hear that”?  Actually no.. When I audition stuff, I don’t typically try to remember how something sounded then compare the new sound. I simply take music I know and monitor my reaction to the new sound. If it changes, I react, either positively or negatively but in this case there was no reaction. I was hearing what I always hear. 

Well it does take a few hours for the effect to fully kick in he told me, so we agreed he’d leave the stuff for a couple of days and I’d hear the improvements. I did actually hear what I thought was a small improvement, so after a couple of days, I removed the boxes one at a time and listened for any changes. Nothing with the amp, or the server, but I did notice a small retrograde step when I removed the cable from my AQVox SE, which has an earthing point that at the time wasn’t connected. After handing back all the boxes, I did get a short earth cable made up for the switch and again heard the improvement, albeit rather minor, but worth the cable’s £20.00

[PeterG]

2 hours ago, Blackmorec said:

I invited our regional distributor to come around and install his earthing system to see what effect it had on sound quality. He arrived with 2 large and a third very large wooden box where the brand name appeared to be literally branded into the wood and a plethora of different cables, with various terminations and some fairly exotic prices. We listened to a few track to get a benchmark then added the various boxes and cables. 

We replayed the tracks and the dealer looked at me gleefully and said, ‘hear that”?  Actually no.. When I audition stuff, I don’t typically try to remember how something sounded then compare the new sound. I simply take music I know and monitor my reaction to the new sound. If it changes, I react, either positively or negatively but in this case there was no reaction. I was hearing what I always hear. 

Well it does take a few hours for the effect to fully kick in he told me, so we agreed he’d leave the stuff for a couple of days and I’d hear the improvements. I did actually hear what I thought was a small improvement, so after a couple of days, I removed the boxes one at a time and listened for any changes. Nothing with the amp, or the server, but I did notice a small retrograde step when I removed the cable from my AQVox SE, which has an earthing point that at the time wasn’t connected. After handing back all the boxes, I did get a short earth cable made up for the switch and again heard the improvement, albeit rather minor, but worth the cable’s £20.00

 

I think you took the right approach to whatever it was that you were testing.  But "his earthing system" in big wooden boxes?  This sounds like some sort of DIY thing--the opposite of the Nordost approach.  If this is a real product, please let us know the brand/model

[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.  

[fas42]

Here's a video I came across before, which does a decent overview of how to do your own "grounding box"; the guy is quite sensible about the whole thing,

 

 

If people are bugged by the silly prices paid for commercial variants, here's a way to experiment, for minimal cost - if if works for you, then you're ahead ... 😉.

 

 

[ASRMichael]

@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! 😂

[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.  

[MarkusBarkus]

12 minutes ago, barrows said:

As well, this video has nothing to do with grounding, and calling such a thing a "grounding box" is a misnomer.  

...calling this video's product a misnomer is very generous and suggests, at heart, you are a very nice person @barrows. Either that or you've made a New Year's resolution of some sort. 😉

 

You may as well fill a shoe-box with party-mix or Velveeta cheese. Funny how the video guy is happy to show you the secret to the magic, but won't tell you The Colonel's 11 herbs and spices for his mix.
 

You could probably make a similar antenna to test by using an RCA plug and a long wire, don't you think? It would be cheaper, although you wouldn't get to toke all those fine Cohibas.

 

 

[fas42]

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 ....

[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.

[Speedskater]

On 1/1/2021 at 4:46 PM, fas42 said:

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.

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.

[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. 

[fas42]

25 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.

 

Ummm, no ... its behaviour, and ways to make it happen are well known - but the actual reason, at the physics level, of why it occurs, and why it varies depending upon everything, was until very recently still a mystery. Check out very recent research into using static behaviours to generate and store usable energy, to understand where investigations are currently.

 

Would be nice if static was only an issue when "when plugging in sensitive circuits or computer cards" 🙂 - consider that movement of materials, especially against each other, is a guaranteed way of causing static. Now, audio replay is about movement of various parts in playback devices, and, movement of air in the room, impacting upon everything. So, how are we going to be 100% sure that none of these physical things are by some means generating electrical noise, which affects some sensitive areas of the replay chain?

[fas42]

39 minutes ago, barrows said:

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.

 

Why can't the air throughout the fine, granular contents of the box be the grounding point? The box itself most likely is irrelevant - you probably could heap up a mound of those minerals loosely on the floor, with the metal plate buried; and it would still work.

 

All these 'funny' minerals generate some electrical behaviour from physical things happening to them - in the box, perhaps they are working in reverse: an electrical field is experienced by them, from the connected plate, and the energy of that is dissipated by their physical reaction to that field.