To the best of my knowledge he doesn't think anything except speakers impact sound quality
Entreq Tellus grounding
- Thread starter spiritofmusic
- Start date
To the best of my knowledge he doesn't think anything except speakers impact sound quality
OMG, C'Paolo, please don't ask Purite anything. Cessaro Liszts and fancy coffee machines are where it's at for him.
Of course, don't tell him that the coffee from his machine, lovely as it is, doesn't measure better than the coffee I get from Starbucks or Costa in town.
Of course, don't tell him that the coffee from his machine, lovely as it is, doesn't measure better than the coffee I get from Starbucks or Costa in town.
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But if you were blind tested you will realize that all coffee machines and coffee beans taste the same
Engineer or Voodoo Paranormal, I will buy and even import their products if I can personally hear the improvement with my own ear in my own system. NASSA engineer and pretty measurement mean nothing for something I can't hear either better or worse.
As always, No comment on the Tellus grounding tough since I hadn't heard it on my system. Maybe in the future if there is any opportunity.
Happy spinning guys
As always, No comment on the Tellus grounding tough since I hadn't heard it on my system. Maybe in the future if there is any opportunity.
Happy spinning guys
Is Bruce even still making the woofer? Its efficiency drops off so substantially over 20 Hz.
I remember when he first demonstrated it with no music at the RMAF. He shook picture frames an inch off the wall. Bruce was a student at FSU when I was still teaching there and would often come over with new things to demonstrate, such as electrostatic head phones with 1000 volts on them a wrapped in a furnace filter. I refuse to listen to them.
I thought I'd get back to the focus of this thread, subjective claims on Entreq grounding that can't easily be backed up objectively. About to ground my Nat Audio SE2SE 211s monos SETs which will complete 8 components, and in effect my whole rig, fully grounded. Will get back w/the results, but if previous experience is any yardstick, I'm sure I'll be contented.
When I first started grounding, my system was quite a bit different, and I found going Atlantis add-on ground box to my S. Tellus, and to Atlantis ground cbls from Apollos, was not beneficial. I'm going to revisit this area, and now that my set up has advanced w/bulletproof balanced power, more powerful SETs, Entreq Olympus Mini and S. Cleanus to my transformer, and a full loom of Sablon ic's/pc's/sc's which are a massive step beyond my previous Zu loom.
So I'm tempted to try the uber Olympus Tellus and all-Atlantis ground cbls in place of S. Tellus/all-Apollos.
When I first started grounding, my system was quite a bit different, and I found going Atlantis add-on ground box to my S. Tellus, and to Atlantis ground cbls from Apollos, was not beneficial. I'm going to revisit this area, and now that my set up has advanced w/bulletproof balanced power, more powerful SETs, Entreq Olympus Mini and S. Cleanus to my transformer, and a full loom of Sablon ic's/pc's/sc's which are a massive step beyond my previous Zu loom.
So I'm tempted to try the uber Olympus Tellus and all-Atlantis ground cbls in place of S. Tellus/all-Apollos.
Just checking in again after a couple days to see what sort of hornet's nest my comments stirred up.
Hey people, something to keep in mind about me is that I am blunt and sometimes annoying. In my heart there is no malice toward anyone but if I am 'puzzled and amuzed' by something that seems like supernatural claim my scientific background always throws a B.S. flag up in my face, and I start asking pointed questions and regurgitating my education and experience.
Lacking any information on their principle of operation, the grounding boxes full of stuff seem odd to me and the pretty wood finish on power conditioners seem unnecessary, as does stacking them in between components of the system. IMO they would look better in small metal cabinets hiding in the rear and just as effective.
Will a huge chunk of metallic stuff really make a difference and 'absorb' (since by Maxwell it cannot be shielding)? I suppose that depends on the interconnect to it and what it is composed of. Bus bars, cables, transformers, resistors, inductors, and capacitors are passive components that are composed of 'stuff' too. The route to audio nirvana through them is to re-route noise currents away from the signal grounds and into the chassis grounds so that the entire system as a whole has a largely fixed potential on a shield covering the whole signal path from external strayness. Think of it as a tinfoil suit if you must, but engineers rely on such things to keep signals quiet in everything we do, along with many other tricks such as decoupling any potential antennas with EMI isolation.
This is all textbook. The one thing that the average consumer will have no insight to is the grounding choices on the ICs and circuit boards where I have some experience, not as architect but as one of a team working on everything from software to power amp to timing generator to counter to driver to microcontroller, with PLLs and DLLs and all sorts of custom circuitry involved in the mix. Transistor level design and layout, clock net, ESD, sensor assembly, well let's just say the range of technologies I have worked with is fairly wide. I made my share of novice mistakes and fortunately no one paid much of a price because of the nature of the contracts involved and the market forces at play. Let's just say no one died as a result of my learning curve and most of what I made worked fine and sold fine.
So I have depth where grounding is concerned as well as breadth. Maybe not architect level, not even master's level, but I did participate enough to implement strategies (and in some cases design them) with only a few pointers in most cases. I did most of the lifting on my own, except when it got into the GHz and the skin effect the PhD.s and the engineering managers handled that on their own since I do not have the education to follow the concepts and if a simple designer like me could handle it we would not need the PhD.s anyway.
For audio the bandwidths of the signals are small and the noise is readily handled if done with some care and forethought. Things get more complicated when digital is added to the mix but again proper design practices make things work out inside the equipment or we would all be suing our pro DAC manufacturers for fraud.
Where I fail to follow things is where noise is supposed to be sucked off by an external box from components that employ a mix of grounding strategies. Once the noise is in the system it cannot be sucked out. This is not the equivalent of electrical leeches. If something of value exists in that price tag it must be in the strategies of the interconnect and whatever associated deliberately inserted components, whether in series, parallel, etc.
If a box full of heavy stuff has any electrical function in such system I fail to comprehend it, especially lacking schematic or theory of operation.
The biggest red flag to me is that pro sound systems running in huge venues achieve remarkable sound quality these days without these pretty boxes. When I was doing sound as a kid with no education and using garage band junk the biggest issue was the quality of the equipment being used, especially in discrete boxes with incompatible grounding schemes and unshielded pickups all over the stage with tube amps and ungrounded power cords complicating things to no end. Too bad that line frequency is 50Hz or 60Hz while A is 440Hz. A slightly different line power would have allowed us all to get a perfect tuning reference directly off the line frequency running all over the system. 440/8=55 would have been a nice compromise solution for tuning but it might have really complicated harmonies too so maybe it is just as well the way things worked out.
As far as I know, no one in pro sound uses a polished piece of furniture in the system. What they use is balanced cables and often metal equipment racks that form very solid low impedance ground connection between all the metal pro sound cases of the components. Digital radio transmitters and integrated circuits and consistent grounding schemes have already solved this problem, but those solutions are cosmetically unappealing and bulky (if cheap to implement). They also cost a bundle because they often accompany equipment with far more raw power and automation and durability and modularity than is required in a home theater and lack all the latest bells and whistles such as Atmos.
Home theater equipment mixes ground strategies while introducing such issues as cable box line ground loop going all the way back to the utility power transformer grounding rod and physically separated domestic power domain issues with the common star point of the power ground all the way back at the electrical distribution box, with so much impedance in those paths that to anything far removed from DC it might as well be an open circuit if not loop with huge antennas sucking up everything around and inside the entire dwelling.
In such home theater scenario with mix of components and services grounding is a nightmare.
My own system has no cable service but it does have an external Crown amp to add 11.1 capability to an Onkyo '9.2' receiver (the sub out is actually paralleled) and the two components of course use incompatible grounds. I had to modify the cable that came with the amp and the solution I chose was to lift the shield ground connection from case at the amp input, connecting the shield of the RCA to the - (minus) input of the Crown instead. Otherwise, the case ground loop from the line cord of the crown hops through the RCA shield and then through the HTPC power supply back to the line cord. It adds annoying buzz to the system while it s running so I broke the connection by interfacing over RCA without connecting shields to each other.
My solution works fine except when I turn off the receiver. The amp starts picking up lots of interference. It is really annoying (but not deafening) when I have my laptop on a wall wart across the room and plug it in to the Onkyo AUX front panel input with HDMI. When everything is powered up there is no noise at all that I can hear until I crank the master volume up past the point where the s/n passes my threshold of hearing and by that point I have already run the system into clipping with a signal applied. Not sure why turning off the receiver would cause such symptom but there it is. Not interested enough to care either.
So my question to those who are using these premanufactured grounding systems is, what grounding strategies are employed along with (not inside) the box? Is there a troubleshooting method? Does the company guide you through it? What cables come with the system and how are they connected?
My training and experience indicates that keeping all grounds short and thick reduces their impedance, and avoiding loops while adding EMI isolation prevents antennas. The problem is that such practice is difficult to achieve and the strategy taken to get there matters. Forget about isolating signal ground from chassis on such components. With a mixed grounding system that solution is thrown out up front by the choice of component, and if that component is also the switch/processor/receiver then the central component is inherently compromised. Everything from that point forward is bandaids and the better the bandaid is the more it usually costs.
If it works for someone who was otherwise stumped then the company has delivered on its promise regardless of what the technology (or perhaps supernatural claims) may be. My concern is that with a little education and some troubleshooting the result can be achieved for substantially less money and in that case even someone of modest means like myself can have a decent system without such investment in what to my eyes education and experience look like pretty wooden boxes full of stuff decorating my space.
I guess the answer to that is evident from my preface.
Likewise, ditto.
Well fortunately I have never had to add a cable service isolation transformer or any other sort of power conditioning to my system to get the noise floor down substantially below threshold of hearing as opposed to masking threshold in my system. Then again, I have everything but the subwoofers and laptop plugged into one power strip and everything but the laptop shares two adjacent wall outlets so my star connection is pretty solidly established. Others may need balanced/unbalanced line transformers (I have a couple of inline transformers to 1/4" phone plug but reserve them for my microphones that I occasionally use with instrument amps and EMU sound card in the HTPC).
I have no insight into the box full of stuff (as opposed to the power line isolation box) and my suspicion is that the manufacturers of such products like it that way or they would have published something about it to settle these questions.
As to the appropriateness of the solution that is actually being sold, well I suppose that depends upon what it actually accomplishes. Measurements would help settle the point but they need to be done by someone with the expertise to ask the relevant questions of the system.
My questions would be, what relevant benefits are incrementally implementable in what order and where does the cost/benefit begin and end?
The answers are system dependent, thus my questions about the total service being provided and any walk-through advice in selection and installation of components.
Then, what is in that box and how does it function?
I can get that information for just about anything else but in this case it seems a total mystery. Engineers do not like mysteries. They tend to lead to bad outcomes and if the mixed results being anecdotally described on threads such as these are anything to judge by, maybe there is grounds for concern (ugh, sorry for that pun).
Likewise I am hearing similar alarm bells. Nothing in my professional career or education supports the concept of digging up earth and putting a heavy box of it into a system, but to all appearances that seems to be what is going on here so that is how I am conceptualizing it in my mind and the cognitive dissonance from that juxtaposition is causing me some difficulty maintaining my composure. Sorry if my unseemly excitement causes anyone distress of their own. That is not my intention. I am fully willing to be convinced by evidence but sighted listening and anecdotes of purported benefit hold no weight with me when measurements and theory of operation would explain it all and end the debate forever at a relatively tiny cost if the price tag of these boxes is any indication of company cash flow.
I worked with chassis full of test equipment on custom testing rigs for analog and mixed signal component production lines including sensor arrays, I designed and coded for custom boxes in such systems, I debugged/redesigned socketted IC disk controller signal integrity on lab test rigs that were implemented on actual hard drives, and I designed/validated mixed signal pin electronics and controllers and formatters for the test heads.
I never had any difficult grounding issues to speak of save one pin electronics IC that was already designed when I hired in and joined in the debug and one poorly designed ATE IC load board somewhere too that I was the in-house customer for.
Honestly folks, on the IC it amounted to isolating power and signal grounds while adding more ground pins to lower the inductance, and on the load board it amounted to a new layout with more decoupling capacitors so we could drive automatically generated test vectors through the JTAG chain without dumping huge noise spikes all over the chip. I even wrote deliberately noisy chip resets to glitch and screen out parts with a marginal GHz clock path in the custom high speed serial/parallel interface we contracted as a block from a vendor. I got into the grease all the way up to my elbows and maybe up to my neck a couple of times.
Compared to the complexity of a home theater, a multimillion dollar ATE has amazing grounding issues to deal with and gazillion cables running everywhere between refrigerator-sized equipment racks. We seemed to handle it without any boxes full of stuff but then the grounding strategies were consistently applied and enforced or the thing just would not work. Power conditioners were part of some of the systems where required to meet spec and that is as close to a box full of stuff we ever got.
It does not matter what is connected to such connectors, if it has a case ground to line ground hanging off it the whole signal integrity scheme gets flushed down the toilet by the ground loop that includes the signal ground conductor. Even just a longish cable can pick up noise because it becomes a de facto antenna, especially when interconnecting three or more components in such fashion forms huge loops that make great loop antennas.
How would it act as a filter? Filters are in-line or parallel, either they block or they divert. A box hanging in midair can do neither unless it has passive components inside of it and a consistent cabling strategy interconnecting it into the system. I just fail to see how the average user is going to understand the physics behind it so it must be all rule of thumb?
I am blunt. These boxes of stuff seem ridiculous to me based upon my prior experience. Maybe I am totally off base but the hefty and nicely finished boxes seem like a ploy to extract a higher price for what is more appropriately handled as a hybrid system level design using traditional techniques and hardware. I expect to find such traditional components inside of these nicely finished boxes at a huge markup if they actually work at all and I expect to find that replacing those boxes with simple drab traditional components in cheap cases similar to the one holding your average UPS would do the job just as effectively.
I understand that it is difficult to handle disparate components and services and these products probably do add value to those with no relevant EE design experience with grounding, especially in home theater. I do not know what else to add. If you are feeling defensive then post some evidence that proves me an abrasive idiot and ignorant to boot, and I will concede the point without judgment or malice because it is the science that always wins such debates and I will have made a donkey of myself in a public spectacle for all, including me, to enjoy in full glory. Would not be the first or last time. I will survive the experience, so fire away.
I think I just did all that. My background is in-depth and broad but my education is BSEE and my actual involvement is as designer and implementer, not architect, on system, component, and IC level up to but not including GHz skin effect etc. and no RF either. All my work has been a team effort because the products I have helped to design require team effort by their complex and labor-intensive nature.
Anything that can explain what the box actually does with measurements and theory if not actual schematic will suffice to calm my cognitive dissonance. So far, after perusing a couple of these threads, I am still confused and concerned for people's wallets. ABX DBT would be a nice to-have but as an engineer I am willing to accept measurement data since it is far easier to get IMO and less controversial.
The DBT I would like to see is one where the box of stuff is swapped out for a bus bar and the isolation transformers and conditioners are all removed except where interfacing incompatible grounds to each other. If any audible differences arise, then troubleshooting and addressing them one at a time until the actual perceptual difference vanishes would settle once and for all whether the box of stuff is helping or not.
That would necessitate significant duplication because it is impossible to make such changes with a simple ABX in signal path (it would necessitate two isolated systems alternately running identical programming and ABX switching the speakers between them) so my impression is such DBT will never be done, ever, because the cost of doing it competently in a fashion that teases out the relevant facts is prohibitive to any entity of smaller stature than a Harman.
How does a box of stuff fit in to the picture? What is really inside of it? How is it working?
Without that box of stuff would the value added really plummet by 90% or more over the cost of appropriate isolation/interconnect/power?
How does an external box full of ferrite (if that is what it is) accomplish anything?
Poor Peter. His frustration is palpable.
What about crowdsourcing an investigation? GoFundMe might have some luck solving this mystery. Buy one and crack it open and then tell us what is inside. Have the material analyzed and describe any other components and interconnect. Prepare to hear howls of protest from the manufacturers. Hire an attorney. I dunno, how else are we ever supposed to understand these things?
Very much interested to see photos/schematics/measurements. Best of luck with your project. However it works, the important thing is that it works for you. That takes precedence over everything else no matter how you get there.
Well thank you everyone for your explanations and opinions. I still am not understanding how a box of stuff, be it ferrite or whatever, adds value over traditional grounding interfaces between incompatible components and services.
It seems that the piles of pro amps etc. pictured in these pro home systems range from dedicated analog stereo to digital multichannel home theater. The systems integration can be the most difficult part besides cost. If these companies are providing instruction in that and justifying the price tag with a pretty box around a traditional component, hey that is OK for their business model but I am not going to be in that market.
Even if I could afford it I would probably just troubleshoot any issues methodically and apply the solutions I already know with my box of salvaged DIY junk because it would be faster as well as cheaper, but then comparing the cost of a BSEE and years of experience to the cost of one such system, maybe the box is a bargain. Can you imagine doing a demanding 4-year program and spending decades in industry just to learn how to specify, choose, and wire up your personal home theater system without creating a ball of spaghetti in the grounding?
Regarding any potential benefits from isolation transformers etc. on the power lines well IMO if a the components in a system need such then either it is very dirty environment with physically isolated ground domains or the components and interconnect leave something to be desired in their design. It really depends on the actual usage and it makes no sense IMO to apply such solutions unless the system design actually necessitates them. Measurements are the way an engineer typically confirms the need for such when approaching a new system installation unless the problems are blatant with obvious solutions and in that case I still fail to see how a box of stuff leads to a super(natural) quiet signal ground that cannot be obtained any other way.
From the information that I have seen so far maybe I will never understand it. I do not see people falling all over each other with in-depth theory of operation, all I see is big heavy pretty boxes in pictures on the Internet.
Thanks for your patience and restraint. I know I can be obnoxious. Point taken. Trust me, my employers have generally reacted unfavorably to my communication style and it has caused problems, but in most cases I was correct in my assessment too so I feel somewhat justified even if undiplomatic. 'I told you so' is always an unsatisfying epitaph on a project schedule. 'Whew, just missed that impending disaster' is always preferable. 'Uh oh, I was all wrong' is always a possibility, especially when there is hidden information like in this case.
Hey people, something to keep in mind about me is that I am blunt and sometimes annoying. In my heart there is no malice toward anyone but if I am 'puzzled and amuzed' by something that seems like supernatural claim my scientific background always throws a B.S. flag up in my face, and I start asking pointed questions and regurgitating my education and experience.
Lacking any information on their principle of operation, the grounding boxes full of stuff seem odd to me and the pretty wood finish on power conditioners seem unnecessary, as does stacking them in between components of the system. IMO they would look better in small metal cabinets hiding in the rear and just as effective.
Will a huge chunk of metallic stuff really make a difference and 'absorb' (since by Maxwell it cannot be shielding)? I suppose that depends on the interconnect to it and what it is composed of. Bus bars, cables, transformers, resistors, inductors, and capacitors are passive components that are composed of 'stuff' too. The route to audio nirvana through them is to re-route noise currents away from the signal grounds and into the chassis grounds so that the entire system as a whole has a largely fixed potential on a shield covering the whole signal path from external strayness. Think of it as a tinfoil suit if you must, but engineers rely on such things to keep signals quiet in everything we do, along with many other tricks such as decoupling any potential antennas with EMI isolation.
This is all textbook. The one thing that the average consumer will have no insight to is the grounding choices on the ICs and circuit boards where I have some experience, not as architect but as one of a team working on everything from software to power amp to timing generator to counter to driver to microcontroller, with PLLs and DLLs and all sorts of custom circuitry involved in the mix. Transistor level design and layout, clock net, ESD, sensor assembly, well let's just say the range of technologies I have worked with is fairly wide. I made my share of novice mistakes and fortunately no one paid much of a price because of the nature of the contracts involved and the market forces at play. Let's just say no one died as a result of my learning curve and most of what I made worked fine and sold fine.
So I have depth where grounding is concerned as well as breadth. Maybe not architect level, not even master's level, but I did participate enough to implement strategies (and in some cases design them) with only a few pointers in most cases. I did most of the lifting on my own, except when it got into the GHz and the skin effect the PhD.s and the engineering managers handled that on their own since I do not have the education to follow the concepts and if a simple designer like me could handle it we would not need the PhD.s anyway.
For audio the bandwidths of the signals are small and the noise is readily handled if done with some care and forethought. Things get more complicated when digital is added to the mix but again proper design practices make things work out inside the equipment or we would all be suing our pro DAC manufacturers for fraud.
Where I fail to follow things is where noise is supposed to be sucked off by an external box from components that employ a mix of grounding strategies. Once the noise is in the system it cannot be sucked out. This is not the equivalent of electrical leeches. If something of value exists in that price tag it must be in the strategies of the interconnect and whatever associated deliberately inserted components, whether in series, parallel, etc.
If a box full of heavy stuff has any electrical function in such system I fail to comprehend it, especially lacking schematic or theory of operation.
The biggest red flag to me is that pro sound systems running in huge venues achieve remarkable sound quality these days without these pretty boxes. When I was doing sound as a kid with no education and using garage band junk the biggest issue was the quality of the equipment being used, especially in discrete boxes with incompatible grounding schemes and unshielded pickups all over the stage with tube amps and ungrounded power cords complicating things to no end. Too bad that line frequency is 50Hz or 60Hz while A is 440Hz. A slightly different line power would have allowed us all to get a perfect tuning reference directly off the line frequency running all over the system. 440/8=55 would have been a nice compromise solution for tuning but it might have really complicated harmonies too so maybe it is just as well the way things worked out.
As far as I know, no one in pro sound uses a polished piece of furniture in the system. What they use is balanced cables and often metal equipment racks that form very solid low impedance ground connection between all the metal pro sound cases of the components. Digital radio transmitters and integrated circuits and consistent grounding schemes have already solved this problem, but those solutions are cosmetically unappealing and bulky (if cheap to implement). They also cost a bundle because they often accompany equipment with far more raw power and automation and durability and modularity than is required in a home theater and lack all the latest bells and whistles such as Atmos.
Home theater equipment mixes ground strategies while introducing such issues as cable box line ground loop going all the way back to the utility power transformer grounding rod and physically separated domestic power domain issues with the common star point of the power ground all the way back at the electrical distribution box, with so much impedance in those paths that to anything far removed from DC it might as well be an open circuit if not loop with huge antennas sucking up everything around and inside the entire dwelling.
In such home theater scenario with mix of components and services grounding is a nightmare.
My own system has no cable service but it does have an external Crown amp to add 11.1 capability to an Onkyo '9.2' receiver (the sub out is actually paralleled
) and the two components of course use incompatible grounds. I had to modify the cable that came with the amp and the solution I chose was to lift the shield ground connection from case at the amp input, connecting the shield of the RCA to the - (minus) input of the Crown instead. Otherwise, the case ground loop from the line cord of the crown hops through the RCA shield and then through the HTPC power supply back to the line cord. It adds annoying buzz to the system while it s running so I broke the connection by interfacing over RCA without connecting shields to each other.My solution works fine except when I turn off the receiver. The amp starts picking up lots of interference. It is really annoying (but not deafening) when I have my laptop on a wall wart across the room and plug it in to the Onkyo AUX front panel input with HDMI. When everything is powered up there is no noise at all that I can hear until I crank the master volume up past the point where the s/n passes my threshold of hearing and by that point I have already run the system into clipping with a signal applied. Not sure why turning off the receiver would cause such symptom but there it is. Not interested enough to care either.
So my question to those who are using these premanufactured grounding systems is, what grounding strategies are employed along with (not inside) the box? Is there a troubleshooting method? Does the company guide you through it? What cables come with the system and how are they connected?
My training and experience indicates that keeping all grounds short and thick reduces their impedance, and avoiding loops while adding EMI isolation prevents antennas. The problem is that such practice is difficult to achieve and the strategy taken to get there matters. Forget about isolating signal ground from chassis on such components. With a mixed grounding system that solution is thrown out up front by the choice of component, and if that component is also the switch/processor/receiver then the central component is inherently compromised. Everything from that point forward is bandaids and the better the bandaid is the more it usually costs.
If it works for someone who was otherwise stumped then the company has delivered on its promise regardless of what the technology (or perhaps supernatural claims) may be. My concern is that with a little education and some troubleshooting the result can be achieved for substantially less money and in that case even someone of modest means like myself can have a decent system without such investment in what to my eyes education and experience look like pretty wooden boxes full of stuff decorating my space.
I guess the answer to that is evident from my preface.
Likewise, ditto.
Well fortunately I have never had to add a cable service isolation transformer or any other sort of power conditioning to my system to get the noise floor down substantially below threshold of hearing as opposed to masking threshold in my system. Then again, I have everything but the subwoofers and laptop plugged into one power strip and everything but the laptop shares two adjacent wall outlets so my star connection is pretty solidly established. Others may need balanced/unbalanced line transformers (I have a couple of inline transformers to 1/4" phone plug but reserve them for my microphones that I occasionally use with instrument amps and EMU sound card in the HTPC).
I have no insight into the box full of stuff (as opposed to the power line isolation box) and my suspicion is that the manufacturers of such products like it that way or they would have published something about it to settle these questions.
As to the appropriateness of the solution that is actually being sold, well I suppose that depends upon what it actually accomplishes. Measurements would help settle the point but they need to be done by someone with the expertise to ask the relevant questions of the system.
My questions would be, what relevant benefits are incrementally implementable in what order and where does the cost/benefit begin and end?
The answers are system dependent, thus my questions about the total service being provided and any walk-through advice in selection and installation of components.
Then, what is in that box and how does it function?
I can get that information for just about anything else but in this case it seems a total mystery. Engineers do not like mysteries. They tend to lead to bad outcomes and if the mixed results being anecdotally described on threads such as these are anything to judge by, maybe there is grounds for concern (ugh, sorry for that pun).
Likewise I am hearing similar alarm bells. Nothing in my professional career or education supports the concept of digging up earth and putting a heavy box of it into a system, but to all appearances that seems to be what is going on here so that is how I am conceptualizing it in my mind and the cognitive dissonance from that juxtaposition is causing me some difficulty maintaining my composure. Sorry if my unseemly excitement causes anyone distress of their own. That is not my intention. I am fully willing to be convinced by evidence but sighted listening and anecdotes of purported benefit hold no weight with me when measurements and theory of operation would explain it all and end the debate forever at a relatively tiny cost if the price tag of these boxes is any indication of company cash flow.
I worked with chassis full of test equipment on custom testing rigs for analog and mixed signal component production lines including sensor arrays, I designed and coded for custom boxes in such systems, I debugged/redesigned socketted IC disk controller signal integrity on lab test rigs that were implemented on actual hard drives, and I designed/validated mixed signal pin electronics and controllers and formatters for the test heads.
I never had any difficult grounding issues to speak of save one pin electronics IC that was already designed when I hired in and joined in the debug and one poorly designed ATE IC load board somewhere too that I was the in-house customer for.
Honestly folks, on the IC it amounted to isolating power and signal grounds while adding more ground pins to lower the inductance, and on the load board it amounted to a new layout with more decoupling capacitors so we could drive automatically generated test vectors through the JTAG chain without dumping huge noise spikes all over the chip. I even wrote deliberately noisy chip resets to glitch and screen out parts with a marginal GHz clock path in the custom high speed serial/parallel interface we contracted as a block from a vendor. I got into the grease all the way up to my elbows and maybe up to my neck a couple of times.
Compared to the complexity of a home theater, a multimillion dollar ATE has amazing grounding issues to deal with and gazillion cables running everywhere between refrigerator-sized equipment racks. We seemed to handle it without any boxes full of stuff but then the grounding strategies were consistently applied and enforced or the thing just would not work. Power conditioners were part of some of the systems where required to meet spec and that is as close to a box full of stuff we ever got.
It does not matter what is connected to such connectors, if it has a case ground to line ground hanging off it the whole signal integrity scheme gets flushed down the toilet by the ground loop that includes the signal ground conductor. Even just a longish cable can pick up noise because it becomes a de facto antenna, especially when interconnecting three or more components in such fashion forms huge loops that make great loop antennas.
How would it act as a filter? Filters are in-line or parallel, either they block or they divert. A box hanging in midair can do neither unless it has passive components inside of it and a consistent cabling strategy interconnecting it into the system. I just fail to see how the average user is going to understand the physics behind it so it must be all rule of thumb?
I am blunt. These boxes of stuff seem ridiculous to me based upon my prior experience. Maybe I am totally off base but the hefty and nicely finished boxes seem like a ploy to extract a higher price for what is more appropriately handled as a hybrid system level design using traditional techniques and hardware. I expect to find such traditional components inside of these nicely finished boxes at a huge markup if they actually work at all and I expect to find that replacing those boxes with simple drab traditional components in cheap cases similar to the one holding your average UPS would do the job just as effectively.
I understand that it is difficult to handle disparate components and services and these products probably do add value to those with no relevant EE design experience with grounding, especially in home theater. I do not know what else to add. If you are feeling defensive then post some evidence that proves me an abrasive idiot and ignorant to boot, and I will concede the point without judgment or malice because it is the science that always wins such debates and I will have made a donkey of myself in a public spectacle for all, including me, to enjoy in full glory. Would not be the first or last time. I will survive the experience, so fire away.
I think I just did all that. My background is in-depth and broad but my education is BSEE and my actual involvement is as designer and implementer, not architect, on system, component, and IC level up to but not including GHz skin effect etc. and no RF either. All my work has been a team effort because the products I have helped to design require team effort by their complex and labor-intensive nature.
Anything that can explain what the box actually does with measurements and theory if not actual schematic will suffice to calm my cognitive dissonance. So far, after perusing a couple of these threads, I am still confused and concerned for people's wallets. ABX DBT would be a nice to-have but as an engineer I am willing to accept measurement data since it is far easier to get IMO and less controversial.
The DBT I would like to see is one where the box of stuff is swapped out for a bus bar and the isolation transformers and conditioners are all removed except where interfacing incompatible grounds to each other. If any audible differences arise, then troubleshooting and addressing them one at a time until the actual perceptual difference vanishes would settle once and for all whether the box of stuff is helping or not.
That would necessitate significant duplication because it is impossible to make such changes with a simple ABX in signal path (it would necessitate two isolated systems alternately running identical programming and ABX switching the speakers between them) so my impression is such DBT will never be done, ever, because the cost of doing it competently in a fashion that teases out the relevant facts is prohibitive to any entity of smaller stature than a Harman.
How does a box of stuff fit in to the picture? What is really inside of it? How is it working?
Without that box of stuff would the value added really plummet by 90% or more over the cost of appropriate isolation/interconnect/power?
How does an external box full of ferrite (if that is what it is) accomplish anything?
Poor Peter. His frustration is palpable.
What about crowdsourcing an investigation? GoFundMe might have some luck solving this mystery. Buy one and crack it open and then tell us what is inside. Have the material analyzed and describe any other components and interconnect. Prepare to hear howls of protest from the manufacturers. Hire an attorney. I dunno, how else are we ever supposed to understand these things?
Very much interested to see photos/schematics/measurements. Best of luck with your project. However it works, the important thing is that it works for you. That takes precedence over everything else no matter how you get there.
Well thank you everyone for your explanations and opinions. I still am not understanding how a box of stuff, be it ferrite or whatever, adds value over traditional grounding interfaces between incompatible components and services.
It seems that the piles of pro amps etc. pictured in these pro home systems range from dedicated analog stereo to digital multichannel home theater. The systems integration can be the most difficult part besides cost. If these companies are providing instruction in that and justifying the price tag with a pretty box around a traditional component, hey that is OK for their business model but I am not going to be in that market.
Even if I could afford it I would probably just troubleshoot any issues methodically and apply the solutions I already know with my box of salvaged DIY junk because it would be faster as well as cheaper, but then comparing the cost of a BSEE and years of experience to the cost of one such system, maybe the box is a bargain. Can you imagine doing a demanding 4-year program and spending decades in industry just to learn how to specify, choose, and wire up your personal home theater system without creating a ball of spaghetti in the grounding?
Regarding any potential benefits from isolation transformers etc. on the power lines well IMO if a the components in a system need such then either it is very dirty environment with physically isolated ground domains or the components and interconnect leave something to be desired in their design. It really depends on the actual usage and it makes no sense IMO to apply such solutions unless the system design actually necessitates them. Measurements are the way an engineer typically confirms the need for such when approaching a new system installation unless the problems are blatant with obvious solutions and in that case I still fail to see how a box of stuff leads to a super(natural) quiet signal ground that cannot be obtained any other way.
From the information that I have seen so far maybe I will never understand it. I do not see people falling all over each other with in-depth theory of operation, all I see is big heavy pretty boxes in pictures on the Internet.
Thanks for your patience and restraint. I know I can be obnoxious. Point taken. Trust me, my employers have generally reacted unfavorably to my communication style and it has caused problems, but in most cases I was correct in my assessment too so I feel somewhat justified even if undiplomatic. 'I told you so' is always an unsatisfying epitaph on a project schedule. 'Whew, just missed that impending disaster' is always preferable. 'Uh oh, I was all wrong' is always a possibility, especially when there is hidden information like in this case.
'CherylJosie' earlier this month, I referenced my post in another thread:
http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...ounding-device&p=280913&viewfull=1#post280913
The Keith Armstrong article and the Ralph Morrison book cover the science & engineering that might apply. Mostly it's about 'good engineering practice'. But in this type of thread we often see mis-understandings about that science & engineering.
http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...ounding-device&p=280913&viewfull=1#post280913
The Keith Armstrong article and the Ralph Morrison book cover the science & engineering that might apply. Mostly it's about 'good engineering practice'. But in this type of thread we often see mis-understandings about that science & engineering.
Cheryl, as I've said before, I totally get your incredulity. I have requested tech info from Entreq, but to no avail. Troy is similarly obtuse.
Maybe it's time for an audition? Entreq is available on no quibble trials in the UK, Europe, USA and Asia, so you should have no problems. Listen and report. If you hear nothing worthwhile, you won't be the only one. If you do, however...
I use Shun Mook Diamond Resonators. How the Hell can a combination of three super hard materials ie diamond, steel and Ebony wood combine to max out the warmth in recordings?! Can't see there being any explanation on these either.
Maybe it's time for an audition? Entreq is available on no quibble trials in the UK, Europe, USA and Asia, so you should have no problems. Listen and report. If you hear nothing worthwhile, you won't be the only one. If you do, however...
I use Shun Mook Diamond Resonators. How the Hell can a combination of three super hard materials ie diamond, steel and Ebony wood combine to max out the warmth in recordings?! Can't see there being any explanation on these either.
One other aspect if dissecting the box is the consideration on how the associated Entreq RCA earth cable is terminated-designed.
Yep I do wonder at the "manufacturing" cost of this solution myself and I am pretty sure it would cause an outcry by some
Would terminating existing RCA cable shield only at source provide equal benefits to the Entreq solution, is the Entreq benefit that it is signal "star grounding" in terms of multiple components and not just internal IC of a single product (comes back as well to the cable used by Entreq), a clean 0V reference *shrug*, and while like you and Speedskater I doubt it is happening but is there some kind of unexpected filter type action occurring for signal ground.
Plenty of questions or tests that could be done, but then if someone is strongly sceptical or it annoys them then IMO maybe they should try to audition it in predetermined scenario-environment setups ; Purite Audio should be able to get this pretty easily considering he is a UK audio dealer and I would had thought the UK distributor would be keen on dealers being interested in selling the product.
Cheers
Orb
There is no measurement applicable to quantify the Entreq effect...(visit the hot objectivist thread going on now) the only way is to hear for yourself via a demo...if it doesn't work for your system, hearing preferences, move on. I'm keeping my two Silver Tellus's.
Would love to hear an Entreq Tellus grounding system, but for $7 US, I found a great little USB Grounding device that has a positive sonic effect in my star grounding system... http://www.lessemf.com/computer.html
http://www.lessemf.com/computer.htmlComing back to this, you will find anecdotally there are those that hear no change and others that do, this can be due to multiple reasons including bias on both parts and/or how they also listen to critique/audition something; case in point people did not start passing a recentish ABX test on digital music comparison between different sample rate files until Amir showed it was consistently possible (point here is not whether the sampling was done perfectly but the fact people only started passing the test after they saw for a fact Amir could tell differences).
On a technical side would be interesting to know the components that those two listeners used as part of this as I said probably comes down to hardware design; as an example in theory Entreq should never work (assuming it is influencing the system setup) on something like Chord Electronics because they use high quality isolating relays at the inputs.
There are other ways inputs are handled by manufacturers and some may do what Chord Electronics do, or something else that reduces influence of inputs not in use, or nothing at all.
And then there is how manufacturers handle (design and where) internally connecting signal ground back to chassis ground, pretty sure this is not going to be consistent between manufacturers and even their own models.
Cheers
Orb
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Unfortunately no it cannot be easily confirmed by measurements Keith.
You never saw the engineering debate between well known engineers when John Curl was measuring RCA interconnect cables in an active environment (meaning real world environment and interaction between two active devices) compared to a scientific-engineer controlled environment.
That aside, as another example measurements would not show the audio improvements when one improves even say the house ground; you did not accept this because you argue it is subjective but even if the earth meets regulations it can still cause poor perceived noise that is not always just subtle but also notable on the hifi system (as in my case and experienced by myself and the regulation certified electrician but this level of interference will not be consistent between different house-systems-etc).
Where (house and/or input-output/internal stages/etc) and what measurements are you considering that would make this thread conclusive?
Edit:
Just to clarify my experience with the house earth is about lack of meaningful measurements/how to measure for influence on audio with how improving earth benefits audio listeners (not just me) and not necessarily related to Entreq.
Cheers
Orb
Now that I agree with, I have often told Marc the cost of those can be used in many other places including room acoustics espcially for his concrete hangar - but this message from you is a different tune from stubbornly saying nothing works because you can't be bothered to hear a difference
Keith,
your a dealer so why not see if you can get the box and cables in to audition from the distributor as a potential dealer seller?
I cannot see why you argue as a fact/conclusion it does nothing and yet not even bother testing the product yourself in certain setups with your equipment.
Any reason why you will not try and get the product into your business to test if it is actually worth something in terms of improvement?
Cheers
Orb
