Groundingbox... does it work?

Just googled a little, found this Youtuber with his "self_made Groundbox"


Did anyone discussed it, here?

here's one for about 6.000$ or so.
Grounding box – Tingsha Audio

A litle... expensive, I think? or... is it really VALUE FOR MONEY?

but... maybe it works???? What kind of improvement can we expect?

I apologize if there is already a 3D for this type of accessory

 

What problem are you trying to solve with this?

You said "maybe it works" ---- but for what? Doesn't your house have three pronged outlets with a ground - and do you think thats not working?

 

Add a $1 ferrite ring with 10-12 turns thru the ferrite on your ground wire for same result. You save $5999.

 

That's the question...
I don't know what to expect...
Better sound? cleaner electrical wires or something?

 

You didn't answer my question -- what are you trying to solve? Do you think there is a problem in your setup that requires $6000 to address?

I don't know what to expect, but I also don't want to spend, or don't think I need to spend $6K to find out what it really does.

To consider this "solution" one first have to convince themselves they have a problem that needs addressing / fixing. This is what I call "a solution looking for a problem" But for most the problem doesn't exist in the first place --- at least enough to justify trying to address with a $6K solution.

But have at it! Let us know what you find out!!! YMMV. You might have a grounding problem in your house, I don't know, but I would start with an electrician for $200 first!

 

I may be indulging in overkill, but I have about 8 components, many of which needed to be grounded. On the back of my stereo cabinet I mounted a grounding bus, something like this:



I ran a length of hookup wire to that grounding bus from each component's ground. I also had a rear-facing power strip with a grounding lug, and ran a length of wire from that lug to the grounding bus. Seems to work fine. The particular power strip I used is a Tripp-Lite. What's nice about it is that when I mounted it in my stereo cabinet, the lighted rocker switch shows whether or not power is on; since all my components plug into that strip, I can tell from across the room the power status, and I never need to turn off an individual item. Plus, plugging the components into the rear of the strip helps to organize all the power cords.

 

Amps are amps & Volts are volts & your gear should work okay if it does not it is poorly designed
spend your $6,000 on records not snake oil

 

We started seeing grounding box stuff show up about 10 years ago.

People were raving about them which to me was puzzling. About 2 years ago I took a survey; each respondent had to do some simple measurements with a DVM. What we found was a simple correlation: If the grounding box made some sort of audible improvement, in each such case it was also found that the associated active audio equipment had poor grounding schemes.

I also found in one owner's manual (paraphrasing) that if the equipment was properly grounded, the box would be ineffective.

So apparently they are meant as some sort of band-aid. IME you are far better off seeing to it that your gear is properly grounded, and thus using the ground connection in the AC wiring of your home. The problem is that many high end manufacturers (and a lot of home theater manufacturers) don't have a clue as to how to ground stuff.

But as a general rule of thumb, if your equipment employs single-ended connections, the chassis should be grounded to the house electrical ground via the power cord. The audio ground within the chassis should be referenced to the chassis ground, but not actually the same thing. The grounds of the RCA connections are audio grounds, not chassis ground. If this practice is followed, then you don't have ground loop problems quite so bad.

If you are running balanced, if everything conforms to the balanced line standard (AES48) then you won't have ground loop problems. IME again, most balanced home audio stuff does not support the standard. We made the first balanced line preamps available anywhere about 30 years ago and didn't think that we didn't have to support the standard, so our stuff does. But that sort of thing is rare.

And just for the record, grounding stakes out in the garden and the like are essentially a Bad Idea...

 

Yup... well said. Plus it's the internet -- so it shouldn't be too puzzling that something completely inessential is going to have hype, rave and hyperbole disguised as a real need. That's easy to do. That's one thing the internet has really helped with....

Here is a summary of the problem statement from the "Grounding Box" link included in the OP:

"The technological progress is synonymous of a better world, but sometimes there are unespected drowbacks. In the present time, we are happy with our mobile phones, wifi networks, LED-lights and many other compact electronic devices based on switching power supply, but we should be aware that electromagnetic pollution has never been so high like now.

EMI/RFI coming into our hi-fi system directly from the main outlet power supply or through wires acting like antennas degrades the sound of our system in a manner that was not possible to imagine 10 or 20 years ago. "

In other words, only those of us without phones, wifi, lights and other compact electronic devices can enjoy true audiophile sound..... while the rest of us are relegated to needing something like this $6K solution to get acceptable sound quality.

No accounting for the misspelling of of "unexpected" above in their description. Should be a clear indicator.... (and to prove my point about the power of the internet - watch that get corrected).

 

I don't have any experience with this particular grounding box, but, I did hear a demonstration of Nordost's grounding components at a local dealership. What I heard came as a complete surprise. The system that the Nordost gear was put into is a pretty complicated high end system. Without the Nordost gear, the system is dead quiet. When the Nordost grounding boxes were installed, the sound changed quite dramatically for the better-instruments and voices seemed to be more "free" (not in a flat plane and very natural sounding as far as attack and decay). This was NOT the case of a subtle change that is only evident with a few recordings; it was a change much more obvious than any change between same types of components (between different amplifiers, linestages, or between DAC's, etc.).

I have no idea if Ralph Karsten's conditions had been met--that the components were otherwise properly designed and grounded--so it might well have been a band-aid for a problem in this system. But, how would one be assured that everything in their system met this requirement?

The Nordost system involves common grounding of all components at the power supply level and a separate common grounding of the components at the circuit side (ground wires run from unused inputs in components to the box via supplied wires that include a variety of different plug types--RCA, BNC, ethernet, etc.). I have no idea how this all works, and no idea if it works well in other setups than the one I heard. In this particular system, it was extremely effective.

 

guys ... I wanted to talk about it in general, certainly not to propose to you the purchase of a box of $ 6,000 ... and much less I thought I would buy it ...

 

Its a similar revelation if everything in the system is properly grounded to begin with! Proper audio grounding is an area that is poorly understood by many designers; in a 'complicated system' the probability is high that something can be spoiling the broth. I've seen quite a lot of respected high end components where it was obvious that the designer didn't understand grounding. Some just don't ground their gear- you open them up, and the ground pin of the IEC connector (or green wire of the power cord) isn't even connected! That's being done to avoid ground loops, but IMO/IME its a poor way to do it.

If the chassis is grounded but induced noise in the chassis isn't also induced into the ground of the audio circuit, the result is that the noise floor (and low level IMD) is improved. You can hear that sort of thing right away (IMD can be pretty audible)! So while such a grounding device might help, what helps even more is proper grounding.

Here's a nutshell method of sorting out grounding, if you have a DVM (Digital VoltMeter). This really applies to gear with RCA connections. Measure continuity from the ground pin of the power cord to the chassis of the unit. You should read a direct connection (0.1 ohms or so). Then measure from the RCA inputs and outputs to chassis. If no connection, you have a problem, if less than 1.0 ohms you also have a problem. Check also using the diode test function of the meter- some units employ a pair of diodes between chassis ground and circuit ground. IME you have lower noise if a resistor is also present- diodes won't conduct if the voltage across them is less then their forward bias voltage. If you detect a diode, reverse the leads and try again. Its a problem if you don't see a diode in the reverse direction as well. If you see it in both directions, that's a good thing. This is sort of the tip of the iceberg, but if your gear fails this sort of test it lets you know that things could be better.

 

I trialled a Vertex grounding box in my pretty good system and it did nothing that I could detect. In may work in other set ups but problems it claimed to solve were already dealt with by my equipment - power control, reasonable cables, isolation feet and shelves for example.

At $6,000 it surely can't do as much as investing the same sort of money in a better speaker, or room treatment.

Russ Andrews in the UK explains some of the grounding techniques here:

Russ Andrews - Hi-Fi mains and cable specialist

Click on the link to 'Optimising Your Grounding' on the right.

I've never bought any of that stuff so cannot say what it does.

 

Since you quoted me, I thought I WAS talking about it -- only my view of it is something that is a solution looking for a problem, and not needed. But it sounds like that's not the type of reply or discussion you wanted to hear............. and that's fine.

 

You know... maybe it seems that I would spend 6.000 dollars for that Grounding box. but NO!!! I won't...
thast's all.