There are many ‘grounding boxes’ available now (CAD, Tripoint, Entreq , VertexAQ come to mind) but the Gutwire product claims to be the simplest most effective route as it simply connects a spare signal ground to your mains earth (for example a spare input or output on a DAC).
The concept appears to rely on the mains ground being the point of reference for any signal ground and I’m not sure if this is how dCS products are engineered.
I am afraid that I cannot answer your question beyond saying that I tried the original Entreq version which was broadly similar in concept and found no audible improvement ( or, for that matter, degradation) at all. Still they have refined it since.
The thing that bothers me is its practicality. Gutwire recommends use of one of their ground wires per component. Each ground wire terminates at an AC outlet. So, in my case, my system would require an additional 12 AC outlets ( 24 in total) !
Hi Martin, i use the Ultimate ground cable with my bartok. It certainly seems to reduce a background noise that you aren’t necessarily conscious of. I would certainly recommend you try one. I use two, one on the bartok and one on my amp.
Regards
Thanks Peter, there seems to be two broad approaches: Gutwire to mains ground intimating the mains ground is best - is it though or is it polluted with emi/rfi that result in non zero voltage potential however minuscule? ; then the ‘grounding box approach which I think rely on the low impedance (attractive to rfi /emi) of the materials contained in the box to mitigate the electrical pollutant effects. I have read that such boxes need to be ‘reset’ shaking them up apparently! Hence a further development is ground box connected then to mains to overcome that.
The subject could be quite a rabbit hole but to the layperson it appears a legitimate quest in our increasingly noisy environment.
Thanks for your input Lee, how did you connect to your Bartok? I’m not familiar but I imagine you had choice of analogue rca out, or spdif digital in/out?
Indeed. it is also one were there is unlikely to be a universally applicable solution as due to national practices and electrical codes/standards installations differ so much. Even with such standards applied notionally the practical outcomes in individual dwellings can also differ so much. One thing that you can rely on is that the electrician who installed your domestic circuit will have paid no attention whatsoever to noise, distortion or impedance unless specially instructed. Not that any such instruction will necessarily be understood .
Hi, i connected it to the spdif rca, If you aren’t using the aes connection then i’d recommend using this. (the rca cable can droop a bit due to the weight)
Hi Mart, no problem I did also try the Consummate ground cable, that was very good, but a bit unwieldy as it’s very thick. This one did bend the rca plug! so would definitely use it with an xlr. But alas, i could not accommodate it in my rack setup.
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I did also try the Consummate ground cable, that was very good, but a bit unwieldy as it’s very thick. This one did bend the rca plug! so would definitely use it with an xlr. But alas, i could not accommodate it in my rack setup.