King of snake Oil

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#142
rdf said:
Do grounding block have benefits? In certain circumstances. Again, good audio grounds in large and tall buildings are a rarity in my experience.
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Whilst a little confused why the the legends linked are being dismissed I am not sure that we actually have a huge disagreement here. But let's see if we can get back to a happy medium. Marce is only just out of hospital so is unlikely to be playing for a few days.

Hopefully there is nothing contentious in these first few points
1. audio ground and PE are 2 completely different concepts
2. There is a lot of poorly designed equipment out there.
3.. A lot of people here build their own stuff to higher quality that some studio gear
4. As frequency increases signals can take different routes home in equipment not carefully designed.

Now the potential contention starts. If you install a complex audio systems (say a studio) on the 8th floor of a block in (say) London without the ability to open each unit up and fix pin 1 problems etc AND you get problems with loops, hum or noise pickup what should you do? BTW I realise I am lumping 2 problems together (power supply and signal ground).

Just to really stir things up, an article by barking Ben Duncan Identifying & Solving Mains Supply Problems He does actually sell inductors to put in the earth line.

As I say I don't see a major contention just the difference between preventing the problem in the design vs dealing with something not well made in a challenging environment. I can see how, once you have made things to pass Military EMC requirements you despair over what is sometimes sold as 'pro' audio gear and more so over consumer.
 
#143
1. audio ground and PE are 2 completely different concepts

We know what 'PE' is:
Protective Earth/Safety Ground is the ground connection to the power company Neutral. It's function is to trip a circuit breaker in case of a short circuit/fault.

If 'audio ground' is not just the circuit common, then what is it and what does it do?
 
#145
billshurv said:
No signals should find themselves going down the yellow/green wire in the power cord, but they do.
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Indeed.

If one considers a simple inv op-amp circuit, a fraction of input current physically flows in the load (!), and returns via load ground to the input ground. If the load happens to be external to the equipment, and there is more than one possible ground path to such external equipment, this input current will partly flow in each path, including the green wire.

Equipment doesn't have to be external for this to happen, same applies to any part of the circuit where there is more than one connection between load and input commons.

When designing DIY ground layouts, think signal current path, and try not to give input current a choice of return paths.

Just my 2p worth.
 
#147
Isn't the first step determining whether or not it is deserving of a "scientific method" approach?
Isn't "it's better than magic dots" defending this product, even if only against magic dots?
You may choose to consider these questions rhetorical, as I do the "huge disservice to science" hyperbole.
 
#148
I'm not defending the product. Especially as they claim different ground wires sound different. What I am saying is that there are cases where you come across carp equipment in the real work and have to do something about that. In which case what do you do. Does Whitlock cover it all in his papers or is there every justification for 'RF grounds', giant inductors etc. I am just exploring if there is a real reason for the disagreement currently happening.
 
#149
You just dont get it do you, go read some of the stuff by the people both Speadskater and myself have mentioned, such as Henry Ott, Ralph Morrison...
And yes it applies to Audio frequencies, you may be surprised how much analogue is out there, since the interface to most real world is analogue based for measurement or control.
GROUND is a myth, it is a convenient name we use for the return path that every signal has, it is this return path that we have to control. The only real electronic connection to ground is the protective earth, for double insulated electronics there is NO connection to ground.
 
#154
billshurv said:
'We' do, but do manufacturers of audio gear? Given how prevalent pin1 problems are I am not sure this is the case.
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It took the pro-audio industry over a decade to get up to speed on the pin 1 problem. Now another decade later, the hi-fi industry is still not up to speed.

No signals should find themselves going down the yellow/green wire in the power cord, but they do.
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Yes, signal currents do go down the PE/SG, but the question is just where are they going?
(some of us know the answer, but the grounding box people don't)
[actually it's not the signal currents that are the problem, it's the leakage/noise problems]
p.s. marce are you home already?
 
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#159
Back home, like to get you in an out, suffering a bit pain wise (the second op via a delicate appendage in 6 weeks, though appendage is probably a misnomer, put a sausage through a mangle and you'll get what I mean).😀

Happily the morphine has run out now, quite interesting stuff, lots of sleep and weird dreams, not my cup of tea... prefer herbal pain killers🙂
 
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