Entreq Tellus grounding
- Thread starter spiritofmusic
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Unfortunately I ran into an issue trying to ground my phono stage in addition to my line stage. Although my phono and line stages are tubed, they are very quiet: with both un-muted, no vinyl playing and volume at normal listening level, I can normally hear nothing with my ears to the speakers. However, after grounding the phono stage, I could hear a faint noise similar to a tube rush (in fact, when I first noticed it, I thought a tube had gone bad). Disconnecting the ground cables from the phono stage eliminates the noise. If I disconnect only one ground cable, I only hear the noise in the channel that is still grounded.
Apart for the higher noise floor (which runs contrary to what Chris noticed with his solid-state gear), I really liked what the grounding of the phono stage was doing sonically, so I am debating whether I prefer it grounded or not. I tried both spreading the four spades from the phono and line stage over four pegs or only two each and the outcome was the same. No ground cable was touching a power cord or digital cable.
Apart for the higher noise floor (which runs contrary to what Chris noticed with his solid-state gear), I really liked what the grounding of the phono stage was doing sonically, so I am debating whether I prefer it grounded or not. I tried both spreading the four spades from the phono and line stage over four pegs or only two each and the outcome was the same. No ground cable was touching a power cord or digital cable.
Unfortunately I ran into an issue trying to ground my phono stage in addition to my line stage. Although my phono and line stages are tubed, they are very quiet: with both un-muted, no vinyl playing and volume at normal listening level, I can normally hear nothing with my ears to the speakers. However, after grounding the phono stage, I could hear a faint noise similar to a tube rush (in fact, when I first noticed it, I thought a tube had gone bad). Disconnecting the ground cables from the phono stage eliminates the noise. If I disconnect only one ground cable, I only hear the noise in the channel that is still grounded.
Apart for the higher noise floor (which runs contrary to what Chris noticed with his solid-state gear), I really liked what the grounding of the phono stage was doing sonically, so I am debating whether I prefer it grounded or not. I tried both spreading the four spades from the phono and line stage over four pegs or only two each and the outcome was the same. No ground cable was touching a power cord or digital cable.
That is strange. I am using a Tube DHT LCR phono stage and my main pre is SS. Maybe they need to be connected longer and settle for the vanishing noise floor ?
That is possible: I only had the ground cables connected for about one hour and then disconnected them when I noticed the noise issue. I will try leaving them connected overnight.
Just as a check, do you have your ground cables connected to a pair of inputs or outputs on your phono stage?
They are connected to a spare set on MM inputs. My phono stage has 4 inputs...2 MC for both of my tonearms and 2 unused MM that I use one set for the Atlantis cable input. Are you running them through a second pair of outputs on the phono stage ?
Thanks, Chris.
My phono stage has two sets of inputs, each of which can be configured for low (MM) or high (MC) gain. I am getting noise when connecting the ground cables to the unused set of inputs (I only have one arm). It does not matter if I set that input for low or high gain, although changing the loading on the input used for grounding changes the type of noise I am getting from the other input.
I also tried connecting the ground cables to an unused set of outputs: in this case I get no noise, but the sound becomes a bit bloated and congested (same result as when I tried grounding the line stage using a set of outputs).
I connected the ground cables back to the unused input: will see if the noise dissipates overnight.
Spirit... and LL21,
do you use each terminal of Silver Tellus for a single equipment?
I've just ordered an Atlantis minimus to try the combo with a single equipment (Totaldac D1).
I am trying the way of a single Silver Minimus/Atlantis for each equipment of the chain.
do you use each terminal of Silver Tellus for a single equipment?
I've just ordered an Atlantis minimus to try the combo with a single equipment (Totaldac D1).
I am trying the way of a single Silver Minimus/Atlantis for each equipment of the chain.
Unfortunately I ran into an issue trying to ground my phono stage in addition to my line stage. Although my phono and line stages are tubed, they are very quiet: with both un-muted, no vinyl playing and volume at normal listening level, I can normally hear nothing with my ears to the speakers. However, after grounding the phono stage, I could hear a faint noise similar to a tube rush (in fact, when I first noticed it, I thought a tube had gone bad). Disconnecting the ground cables from the phono stage eliminates the noise. If I disconnect only one ground cable, I only hear the noise in the channel that is still grounded.
Apart for the higher noise floor (which runs contrary to what Chris noticed with his solid-state gear), I really liked what the grounding of the phono stage was doing sonically, so I am debating whether I prefer it grounded or not. I tried both spreading the four spades from the phono and line stage over four pegs or only two each and the outcome was the same. No ground cable was touching a power cord or digital cable.
Most probably you are creating a ground loop between the line and phono units through the Entreq. Perhaps you should try connecting the wires coming from the Entreq to the phono chassis ground, not to the RCA grounds. The grounding of a phono unit is a delicate system, as it has high gain - IMHO you should contact Audio Research on these matters.
Micro, yes: some sort of ground loop is the likely explanation. The odd thing is that the noise disappears if I select the input used for grounding as the sound input to the phono stage. So at this point the logical assumption is some sort of incompatibility with the grounding approach used by ARC.
I cannot easily try grounding the phono stage through the chassis ground, since that would require a spade-to-cable cable, which I do not have on hand. In any case, my suspicion is that chassis grounding would be suboptimal from a sonic standpoint with the Entreq and that the best solution would be to use a separate ground box for the phono stage. I will give this some thought.
there are clearly those who have found that ideally, one component per binding post. Not all of us can do that. I have 14 connections to 3 binding posts!!! That said, i definitely found HOW you connect those cables to the binding posts makes a huge difference. cross-connect 2 wrong components/grounding wires appears to be WORSE than removing 1 of the grounding wires and only having 1 wire/ground. I certainly found a Tripoint cable and Entreq cable touching on the binding post made it WORSE than removing 1 of the 2 wires completely.
But ultimately, by putting the right cables/components on each binding post, it was definitely better.
I suppose this is one reason why Olympus (1 binding post for preamp) and Emperor (8 binding posts) have been delivered to the market.
Caliaripaolo, the common consensus is really NOT to go for the Minimus route, even w/a single box per component, but to shell out for a S. Tellus, and ground 1-8 components to it over time. It seems the grounding capacity of the bigger box is VASTLY in excess of the smaller box, and will win out in performance even w/multiple components grounded.
Minimus is really only recommended for people who have the tightest budget and can't go S. Tellus. And since your budget can stretch to the equivalent of S. Tellus if you can afford multiple Minimus', the advice really is go S. Tellus.
Minimus is really only recommended for people who have the tightest budget and can't go S. Tellus. And since your budget can stretch to the equivalent of S. Tellus if you can afford multiple Minimus', the advice really is go S. Tellus.
Spirit what you say is correct regarding the Minimus V STellus , but the single ground post theory does not necessarily hold good if the Olympus Minimus is brought into the equation . What's the feedback on it from your distributor ? I hear it majors on the flow aspect of delivery .
Jazzhead, there's no formal info on Olympos Minimus at present. It seems that there will be a one peg Minimus version at maybe S. Tellus price levels or a little more, and a 5 peg version at Troy pricing levels. From what I glean from unofficial experience of Olympos Minimus, is that it really is something, maxxing out grounding capacity for one component. It seems like capacity to ground one component in ascending proportion will be Minimus Tellus to Silver Minimus to S. Tellus to Olympos Minimus (not sure where S. Tellus w/Atlantis Tellus fits). The Olympos Minimus is half the size of S. Tellus, but may have more densely packed minerals/silver and copper wiring/plates internally to be a supercharged ground to one component (at least half the grounding capabilitity of S. Tellus, if not 2/3 to 3/4+).
My decision is going to be whether to add a second S. Tellus to my first so I have 8 pegs to ground 8-9 components (incl poss Cleanus), or an Olympos Minimus so this grounds my dual mono line stage alone, and my S. Tellus' 4 pegs ground 6-7 components. The "two S. Tellus" solution seems more logical since this will enable me to use Apollo ground leads to individual pegs for dual mono linestage, Straingauge energiser, Eera cdp, Cleanus, and the remaining 2 pegs to ground SET monos and Zu sub amps (i.e. both SETs to one peg, both Zu sub amps to the other).
BUT…grounding my preamp has benefitted my system the most by a long way, and so an individual Olympos Minimus box just to the dual mono line stage, and all the other components sharing pegs on the S. Tellus may really perform the best.
One for a lengthy home trial, methinks.
My decision is going to be whether to add a second S. Tellus to my first so I have 8 pegs to ground 8-9 components (incl poss Cleanus), or an Olympos Minimus so this grounds my dual mono line stage alone, and my S. Tellus' 4 pegs ground 6-7 components. The "two S. Tellus" solution seems more logical since this will enable me to use Apollo ground leads to individual pegs for dual mono linestage, Straingauge energiser, Eera cdp, Cleanus, and the remaining 2 pegs to ground SET monos and Zu sub amps (i.e. both SETs to one peg, both Zu sub amps to the other).
BUT…grounding my preamp has benefitted my system the most by a long way, and so an individual Olympos Minimus box just to the dual mono line stage, and all the other components sharing pegs on the S. Tellus may really perform the best.
One for a lengthy home trial, methinks.
last night I had 6 visitors (including a WBF member and his wife) that joined my wife and i for a very fun listening session, and after they all left my wife mentioned I had a delivery......so i looked and the 2nd Eartha Atlantis had already arrived. but it was late. so this morning I unboxed it.
I listened for about 30 minutes to the Eartha Apollo pair, then switched in the Atlantis pair. I've been listening to the Atlantis pair now for about an hour and I'd say that all my comments in the below referenced posts about the Silver Tellus w/Eartha Apollo pair apply to the Silver Tellus w/Eartha Atlantis pair only the intensity and degree of improvement is ratcheted up a notch or notch and a half. the music seems to immerge from a slightly deeper place, with a slightly higher emotive component; it swings more.
I'd call this difference after an hour noticable without any trade-offs I can perceive.
http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...llus-grounding&p=294729&viewfull=1#post294729
http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...llus-grounding&p=294744&viewfull=1#post294744
http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...llus-grounding&p=294847&viewfull=1#post294847
I'd had the 2 Apollo's connected since Friday night, so a week......with the 'time out/step back' for one day when I had the one Atlantis plugged into the digital box for a couple of hours. so while it (the complete break-in process) was not yet completely optimal based on the feedback (regarding time to reach optimal performance) I'm hearing, for the Atlantis to start out at a point noticeably better (even considering expectation bias factors) is promising.
as I sit here listening to things 'seem to' open up more, no doubt we have gone to a new place.....
I plan on doing some experimentations as far as connecting the 2 Apollos to the digital soon, but i'll be out of town tomorrow thru Thursday so that will have to wait until I return.
for today I'm just going to enjoy it and let the music come to me...
I listened for about 30 minutes to the Eartha Apollo pair, then switched in the Atlantis pair. I've been listening to the Atlantis pair now for about an hour and I'd say that all my comments in the below referenced posts about the Silver Tellus w/Eartha Apollo pair apply to the Silver Tellus w/Eartha Atlantis pair only the intensity and degree of improvement is ratcheted up a notch or notch and a half. the music seems to immerge from a slightly deeper place, with a slightly higher emotive component; it swings more.
I'd call this difference after an hour noticable without any trade-offs I can perceive.
http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...llus-grounding&p=294729&viewfull=1#post294729
http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...llus-grounding&p=294744&viewfull=1#post294744
http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...llus-grounding&p=294847&viewfull=1#post294847
I'd had the 2 Apollo's connected since Friday night, so a week......with the 'time out/step back' for one day when I had the one Atlantis plugged into the digital box for a couple of hours. so while it (the complete break-in process) was not yet completely optimal based on the feedback (regarding time to reach optimal performance) I'm hearing, for the Atlantis to start out at a point noticeably better (even considering expectation bias factors) is promising.
as I sit here listening to things 'seem to' open up more, no doubt we have gone to a new place.....
I plan on doing some experimentations as far as connecting the 2 Apollos to the digital soon, but i'll be out of town tomorrow thru Thursday so that will have to wait until I return.
for today I'm just going to enjoy it and let the music come to me...
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that last experience in post 675 which I mention above as the 'time out/step back' was trying 'one only' Eartha Atlantis connected to one side of my digital while the 2 Eartha Apollos were each connected to my dart pre. that did not give a good result in my particular situation. but after a day to reboot my system cleared back up and things were good with just the 2 Eartha Apollos/Silver Tellus connected to the dart pre.
this step above is removing the 2 Eartha Apollos completely and inserting the 2 Eartha Atlantis cables connected to my dart pre in their place.....without connecting the Eartha Apollos at all.
I want to go one step at a time. first; are the 2 Eartha Atlantis cables more effective than the 2 Eartha Apollos stand-alone on my dart pre with the Silver Tellus?
the answer so far to that question is a big yes.
YMMV, IMHO and all that stuff. this is all system and gear specific I think. but we are building a data base of experiences.
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It's too bad that you don't know how to use your Fluke 87V multimeter, it would be interesting to compare the resistance measurements of the Apollo and Atlantis cables and start building a data base of factual Entreq information.;-)
Sure Mike, database so far seems to be (not in all cases, but many): don't mix Apollo and Atlantis leads on same ground box, Atlantis leads trump Apollos, S. Tellus trumps Minimus even if only grounding one component, don't mix analog and digital components on same ground box terminal, preferably ground analog and digital on separate ground boxes, try not to use more than one spade per terminal, Atlantis Tellus add-on box serious upgrade over S. Tellus alone, isolation like Stillpoints works well w/Entreq ground boxes.
