Pano, of course you like the Kona blend right?
On a serious note, I live in the area where a retailer of these products are sold.
I have on several occasions mentioned the lack of credibility of this concept. For it to work it would need current to flow, whether adding or subtracting of noise. Of course no response is given when I mention to him that a single terminated wire in a high impedance medium like air is going to cause even more noise.
On a serious note, I live in the area where a retailer of these products are sold.
I have on several occasions mentioned the lack of credibility of this concept. For it to work it would need current to flow, whether adding or subtracting of noise. Of course no response is given when I mention to him that a single terminated wire in a high impedance medium like air is going to cause even more noise.
I did a show here about 6 months ago, and the dealer I was working with, pulled a grounding box out. Cost £300. It was a black aluminium (I presume) cylinder about 6" in diameter and about 12" high with 2 large gold plated speaker terminals on it. It was quite heavy (15 lbs or so). Nicely finished off etc.
The theory is that if you run a wire from your amplifier chassis to the grounding box terminal, it will 'sink' away any noise and hum. Needless to say, it showed absolutely no propensity to do what was advertised on the box when one of the people on the show encountered some hum.
After rooting around, the problems was found. There is a local guy who modifies OPPO CD Players (RIP) wherein he replaces the power supply and adds some decoupling and other stuff. Well, he had used a Block EI transformer (the encapsulated ones) and they have one hell of an EMR field and that was getting into the small signal circuitry and causing the hum - I ascertained is was a cross channel ground loop.
When we put a non-tweaked CD player on, the system was totally silent.
Moral of the story: if your system hums, there is a rational explanation and cure and its not a 'Grounding box'. Grounding boxes are snake oil.
The theory is that if you run a wire from your amplifier chassis to the grounding box terminal, it will 'sink' away any noise and hum. Needless to say, it showed absolutely no propensity to do what was advertised on the box when one of the people on the show encountered some hum.
After rooting around, the problems was found. There is a local guy who modifies OPPO CD Players (RIP) wherein he replaces the power supply and adds some decoupling and other stuff. Well, he had used a Block EI transformer (the encapsulated ones) and they have one hell of an EMR field and that was getting into the small signal circuitry and causing the hum - I ascertained is was a cross channel ground loop.
When we put a non-tweaked CD player on, the system was totally silent.
Moral of the story: if your system hums, there is a rational explanation and cure and its not a 'Grounding box'. Grounding boxes are snake oil.
Let's go with the original concept of a DIY project. The final result may impress some of our more gullible friends.
- Obtain an empty wooden wine box. The type with a slide off lid is convenient and the greater the bottle capacity the better.
- Remove any internal wooden partitions and line the box with a large foil turkey roasting tray.
- Mount one or more 4mm sockets on the side of the box so that they connect internally to the roasting tray.
- Fill the box with a mix of mineral crystals and kiln dried sand.
Attachments
You know I do!!
And on that subject - back when my listening room was actually in/under the ground in Kona - I found that the ground is not as electrically quiet as one might hope. It can be very noisy, in fact. For example: If the tip of an RCA cable touched the dirt a very loud hum and buzz was the result. Yes, it was literally grounded, but wow was the ground noisy.
I had found a similar thing in the mainland suburbs by connecting the input of a USB soundcard to a spike in the ground. Wanted to hear what was down there.
. What was down in the ground was buzzzzzzz.
Loop around what? I see a wire straight into a box of dirt (maybe very special dirt).
The devices which go into the common ground may also be grounded through the mains. This constitutes a ground loop by any definition.
- Status
- Not open for further replies.