Synergistic Research Active Ground Block, only $2,995:
Active Ground Block SE - Synergistic Research
Active Ground Block SE - Synergistic Research
That's just one big expensive ground loop. You can "lower your noise floor" for free by hooking your equipment up properly. For the price I could pay the actual musicians to perform at my house and get all the "height, depth, and width" and all the "organic sound" I could ever want. I bet there's not much inside of it. I bet there's not much inside the skulls of the marketers that write that drivel either.
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What a bunch of pseudoscientific crapola.
If I was dishonest, I could make a LOT of money with pseudo-wizardry and techno-babble word salad.
Now I don't feel so bad about selling preamps for $1500.
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I just sent them a comment. Here it is.
"It's companies like you that give hi-fi a bad reputation. I'm an electrical engineer that designs and builds custom audio equipment. I can clearly see through your vile pseudo-scientific marketing lies and nonsense. It's too bad that you can't find a way to make an honest living.
Sincerely,
Ed Donlon"
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"By cleaning up your system’s ground connection you hear a noticeable improvement in soundstage height, depth and width thanks to a lower noise floor. Soundstage scale is improved with richer tonal density especially at the edges of your sound field. Image outlines are brought into clearer focus while musicality and overall system refinement are greatly improved."
I wonder what no ground at all does, i.e. batteries for power, RF data connection for music signal, versus cables and AC connection? Anyone have an experience with this?
Ask any large mainstream manufacturer... I've yet to see a modern amp/receiver use a ground connection to the wall... 2 pin IEC is seemingly normal now.
Like this Marantz:
Like this Marantz:
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Ask any large mainstream manufacturer... I've yet to see a modern amp/receiver use a ground connection to the wall... 2 pin IEC is seemingly normal now.
Like this Marantz:
I use 3 wire mains grounded connections on some of my builds. It depends on the chassis I'm using. I use almost all salvage parts for chassis and mains connections, so I go with the flow. I even reuse the safety circuit board (if my salvage unit is so equipped) on 2 wire mains connections, and add a safety ground on the power supply board.
You have to isolate the mains ground from the rest of the grounds with a ground lifter/safety circuit, which is just a 10 ohm 5 watt (typically) resistor and a high amp bridge rectifier in parallel. You have to make sure that the safety circuit will blow the fuse in the case of a gross ground fault. The rectifier limits the maximum lift voltage to less than 2 volts. The chassis is connected directly to mains ground.
I never have any ground loop problems. I mix my equipment up with commercial equipment, old and new. I design it to be universally compatible and to conform to safety regulations. So far it seems like I've achieved this.
No ground? I'm not sure what you mean. You always have some kind of ground in an electronic circuit, at least to reference bias voltages/currents.The trick is to avoid ground loops, and to group and segregate grounds so no large currents and small currents flow through the same conductor. Example the ground current from large power supply capacitors is very irregular and could be very large. You don't want that to modulate a small signal ground, because it will introduce noise and distortion. You have to segregate the currents on the board and in the wiring or else you'll end up with noise and distortion. By the way this same principle applies to the V+ and V- leads too. The rail current to a class B output stage is very irregular and can modulate line level circuitry if care is not taken in layout.You can do all of this for FREE. You don't need a $2000 hunk of metal to achieve this.
Edit: using an external Bluetooth device, which is usually powered by a wall wart, completely eliminates one potential source of a ground loop. Same goes if you use a battery powered (or wall wart powered) device anywhere in your signal path. So yes, a battery powered preamp could eliminate one loop entirely and eliminate a potential source of noise and distortion.Another tried and true method is to use a coupling transformer. Heresy in hi-fi I know, but it's supposed to be the easiest way to eliminate ground loop problems with cheap bluetooth boards. It's bulky and expensive, but it's reliable.
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I generally tie house ground directly to B+ ground (B-earth?) and Audio ground at the chassis, and use said chassis as the defacto ground. This reminds me I forgot to tie Earth to Chassis on my latest build, so it's Earthed through audio cables right now... Not good.
I've never had a ground loop or noise issue yet unless the source causes it (powered from across the room on the other side of the panel). In that case, transformer coupling gets rid of any loops.
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I think that would make a noisy audio ground. That's the way old tube equipment (1950s) was built and it was a constant source of noise and trouble.
As you get older, it will become harder and harder to get into and out of that car 😎
Jan
Agreed, but I usually use Aluminium for the chassis, and I use SMPS DC for the heaters, so it's not been any problem at all...I regulate the grid supply, too.
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I should have said earth ground. Sorry for any confusion; my mistake. Right now, I'm using a commercial industrial 24V linear supply for the Zoudio amp I'm listening to. I earth grounded the chassis of it, while the AC goes straight to the lugs of the PT.
Unsure of what the earth ground connection does to the sound, regarding the superlatives mentioned in the link I copied. (I have batteries from my electric mower (24V, 18AH) I could haul up into the livingroom and have actually prepared them with a quick disconnect - but havent yet found a good opportunity to do so)