Entreq Tellus grounding

[flyer]

Hi Flyer, I just want to be clear I understand you. Are you saying you ground only your server/reclocker and not the two DAC boxes or are you grounding each box? Also, are you using Atlantis cables or something else? Thank you.

Hi Romaz, sorry for the late reply. I tried to ground the two DAC's only and then the reclocker only. The latter gave the best result. I didn't have enough cables to have them all three connected.

From my test it seems the grounding pin of the incoming AES on the reclocker unit is connected to the reclocker mechanism. This doesn't mean the two other pins are, so if you read that Totaldac claims that the unused inputs are disconnected, this still holds as the grounding pin does not transfer any signal and then I don't see any conflicting info.

Only Apollo cables used.

 

[romaz]

Hi Romaz, sorry for the late reply. I tried to ground the two DAC's only and then the reclocker only. The latter gave the best result. I didn't have enough cables to have them all three connected.

From my test it seems the grounding pin of the incoming AES on the reclocker unit is connected to the reclocker mechanism. This doesn't mean the two other pins are, so if you read that Totaldac claims that the unused inputs are disconnected, this still holds as the grounding pin does not transfer any signal and then I don't see any conflicting info.

Only Apollo cables used.

Flyer, thanks so much. I will try what you have tried and I'll see what I get. With an Atlantis cable to each monobloc and then connected to a Poseidon, the results are pretty amazing.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

as far as grounding, I have the Entreq Silver Telos for signal path grounding, I use connected to my dart preamp one cable to an unused rca on each channel.....and I like what it does. and could care less what it looks like inside. I'm happy.

but my most profound grounding experience by far is plugging or unplugging the ground connection for my Tara Labs Grandmaster Evolution XLR cable floating ground and floating shield grounding connection between the dual mono HFX grounding system box and the ground on my Trinity dac. the noise floor drops dramatically. it's startling.

from the Tara Labs web site;

Inside the Floating Ground Station are Ceralex® components. Ceralex is a ceramic composite compound for the absorption and grounding of RFI and EMI. This compound is comprised of metallic oxides and a specific amalgam of mineral elements in a ceramic binder.

the cable is very quiet to begin with the air dielectric system and as good or better a sounding cable as I have ever heard. then the HFX grounding system takes things beyond expectations.

I have the Trinity for PCM and the Golden Gate for dsd. it is not possible to fairly compare the performance of the two dacs until I receive my second set of Grandmaster Evolution interconnects that I have on order (2 meter RCA's).

and this has nothing to do with whether the gear is properly designed as far as grounding or not, it's simply what happens when you deal with the noise that is part of every cable you use. I wish that this stuff did not work as it does as that would have saved me some serious money. I'm happy to demo the plugging and unplugging for anyone interested. whereas the effect of the Entreq is more subtle and ramps up over time to some degree; this is about as subtle as a punch in the nose.

 

[Barry2013]

as far as grounding, I have the Entreq Silver Telos for signal path grounding, I use connected to my dart preamp one cable to an unused rca on each channel.....and I like what it does. and could care less what it looks like inside. I'm happy.

but my most profound grounding experience by far is plugging or unplugging the ground connection for my Tara Labs Grandmaster Evolution XLR cable floating ground and floating shield grounding connection between the dual mono HFX grounding system box and the ground on my Trinity dac. the noise floor drops dramatically. it's startling.

the cable is very quiet to begin with the air dielectric system and as good or better a sounding cable as I have ever heard. then the HFX grounding system takes things beyond expectations.

I have the Trinity for PCM and the Golden Gate for dsd. it is not possible to fairly compare the performance of the two dacs until I receive my second set of Grandmaster Evolution interconnects that I have on order (2 meter RCA's).

and this has nothing to do with whether the gear is properly designed as far as grounding or not, it's simply what happens when you deal with the noise that is part of every cable you use. I wish that this stuff did not work as it does as that would have saved me some serious money. I'm happy to demo the plugging and unplugging for anyone interested. whereas the effect of the Entreq is more subtle and ramps up over time to some degree; this is about as subtle as a punch in the nose.

That is interesting Mike.
I hadn't appreciated that those Tara Labs cables had earthing leads. I had thought it was confined to the Entreq i/cs and speaker cables which are what I use. They certainly work well in my system and there is a cumulative benefit from using their ground boxes and signal cables with their own earthing leads.
The fact that both brands are using that system is persuasive additional evidence to that of our own ears.
Is it confined to Entreq and Tara Labs or do others employ the same system?

 

[Mike Lavigne]

That is interesting Mike.
I hadn't appreciated that those Tara Labs cables had earthing leads. I had thought it was confined to the Entreq i/cs and speaker cables which are what I use. They certainly work well in my system and there is a cumulative benefit from using their ground boxes and signal cables with their own earthing leads.
The fact that both brands are using that system is persuasive additional evidence to that of our own ears.
Is it confined to Entreq and Tara Labs or do others employ the same system?

off the top of my head I can think of Synergistic as a brand that has some sort of grounding scheme going for their cables. but I have no personal experience with those. I've been in demo's with any number of Ted Denny's gear and they do something.

I don't want to get too deep into cable grounding on an Entreq thread, but I would suggest looking closer into the depth of what Tara Labs is doing with the Grandmaster Evolution cables. particularly with the combination of the degree of execution of the air dielectric and the floating ground. I'm sure there is common thinking between the Entreq cables and the Tara; but degree of execution are many levels of magnitude different......as is the price. Tara has been doing this and developing this direction for more than 10 years and a number of generations of cables.

 

[Barry2013]

Thanks Mike.
I will have a longer look at Tara Labs

 

[rockitman]

View attachment 23209
I believe this is the original Tripoints posted in FB

View attachment 23210
This is the latest Tripoints Signature SE posted by Miguel himself

Thank you. Clearly a different animal than Entreq internals...then again it works differently by the fact it is plugged into a wall outlet and chassis grounds are connected vs not plugging into the wall and using signal grounds. Sounds like both would be of benefit.

 

[caliaripaolo]

Thanks Paolo.
That's very encouraging. Should get the Poseidon to try in about two weeks time.
The plan is to use it for the amp negative grounding and the Sky HD BOX and to use the two freed Silver Minimus to ground the Puccini and the Scarlatii word clock currently on one of the two Silver Tellus thus isolating all the digital gear from the rest of the system.
Will let you know how it goes once it is up and running.
Enjoy your music!

First of all I would like to remember the victims of Paris, everything else becomes nothing compared. For my job, I am in Paris almost every month and I know those places very well! I have many friends who live in Paris.
Sorry for this foreword.

Hi Barry,
hope you are well.
Did you received your Poseidon to test?
I've received my second, I use it to ground my digital chain and one input of my Spectral DMA 260.
I confirm, IMHO, Poseidon is the killer in grounding box. It maintains the black ground of Silver Tellus, but it adds more refinement and body.
I use the second Poseidon to ground:

1. Totaldac D1 Reclocker with Atlantis Eartha cable
2. berkeley alpha usb (which I use as USB/AES/EBU converter) with Apollo Eartha cable
3. 1 spare input of Spectral DMA 260 with Apollo Eartha cable

I prefer to individually separate each ground connection. In my system, the outcome is way better than connecting all ground terminals to the same box.

 

[romaz]

First of all I would like to remember the victims of Paris, everything else becomes nothing compared. For my job, I am in Paris almost every month and I know those places very well! I have many friends who live in Paris.
Sorry for this foreword.

Hi Barry,
hope you are well.
Did you received your Poseidon to test?
I've received my second, I use it to ground my digital chain and one input of my Spectral DMA 260.
I confirm, IMHO, Poseidon is the killer in grounding box. It maintains the black ground of Silver Tellus, but it adds more refinement and body.
I use the second Poseidon to ground:

1. Totaldac D1 Reclocker with Atlantis Eartha cable
2. berkeley alpha usb (which I use as USB/AES/EBU converter) with Apollo Eartha cable
3. 1 spare input of Spectral DMA 260 with Apollo Eartha cable

I prefer to individually separate each ground connection. In my system, the outcome is way better than connecting all ground terminals to the same box.

So Paolo, with your grounding system comprised of 2 Poseidons and a mix of Atlantis/Apollo Eartha cables, how would you prioritize its impact on each your components, from greatest to least? Is the largest impact on your amp?

 

[caliaripaolo]

So Paolo, with your grounding system comprised of 2 Poseidons and a mix of Atlantis/Apollo Eartha cables, how would you prioritize its impact on each your components, from greatest to least? Is the largest impact on your amp?

Hi Romaz,
the contribution of the Poseidon is remarkable in term of refinement, increasing the full bodied of sound and rendering it so amazingly palpable.
To let you have an idea of impact on each component, I can resume hereafter (in order of great impact on my system):

1. grounding with 2 Apollo SS the negative terminals of Spectral DMA 260
2. grounding one spare unbalanced terminal of the Totaldac D1 Dual via Atlantis cable
3. grounding the balanced output of Totaldac Reclocker via Atlantis cable
4. grounding the balanced input of Spectral DMA 260 via Apollo cable
5. grounding one spare output of Berkeley Alpha USB via an Apollo cable
6. grounding my MAC Mini via one Apollo Earha USB cable

 

[romaz]

Hi Romaz,
the contribution of the Poseidon is remarkable in term of refinement, increasing the full bodied of sound and rendering it so amazingly palpable.
To let you have an idea of impact on each component, I can resume hereafter (in order of great impact on my system):

1. grounding with 2 Apollo SS the negative terminals of Spectral DMA 260
2. grounding one spare unbalanced terminal of the Totaldac D1 Dual via Atlantis cable
3. grounding the balanced output of Totaldac Reclocker via Atlantis cable
4. grounding the balanced input of Spectral DMA 260 via Apollo cable
5. grounding one spare output of Berkeley Alpha USB via an Apollo cable
6. grounding my MAC Mini via one Apollo Earha USB cable

Very interesting. Thank you! You mentioned you might supercharge with your Atlantis cable (1 spade per post) but it looks like you have not stayed with that configuration. Did this not make a difference?

 

[Barry2013]

Hi Romaz,
the contribution of the Poseidon is remarkable in term of refinement, increasing the full bodied of sound and rendering it so amazingly palpable.
To let you have an idea of impact on each component, I can resume hereafter (in order of great impact on my system):

1. grounding with 2 Apollo SS the negative terminals of Spectral DMA 260
2. grounding one spare unbalanced terminal of the Totaldac D1 Dual via Atlant
   
3. grounding the balanced output of Totaldac Reclocker via Atlantis cable
4. grounding the balanced input of Spectral DMA 260 via Apollo cable
5. grounding one spare output of Berkeley Alpha USB via an Apollo cable
6. grounding my MAC Mini via one Apollo Earha USB cable

Thanks Paolo.
Accords with my experience with my system.
The other top performer was the addition of four balanced Apollo i/cs for my sources. Made a big and immediately audible improvement. Not cheap but very good and I can highly recommend them.
My Poseidon and Apollo clock cable are arriving on Friday morning so I'll report back further on how they work in my system over the weekend. Looking forward to it on the basis of your experience.
Regards,
Barry

 

[TBG]

Thanks Paolo.
Accords with my experience with my system.
The other top performer was the addition of four balanced Apollo i/cs for my sources. Made a big and immediately audible improvement. Not cheap but very good and I can highly recommend them.
My Poseidon and Apollo clock cable are arriving on Friday morning so I'll report back further on how they work in my system over the weekend. Looking forward to it on the basis of your experience.
Regards,
Barry

Has anyone tried the TriPoint Thor SE grounding cables on Entreq? They are expensive and heavy but they add a great deal to the performance of the Troy Signature.

 

[rockitman]

Has anyone tried the TriPoint Thor SE grounding cables on Entreq? They are expensive and heavy but they add a great deal to the performance of the Troy Signature.

Do they have RCA connections ? That's what Entreq uses for its signal ground boxes and xlr. Spades would be used for the chassis ground.

 

[TBG]

Good question. I do know from the past with the AR grounding puck that there are RCA connectors with, I think, a screw connector to which you could attach a spade.

Perhaps Miguel will answer your question. I sought to use an Entreq ground with a spade to the Troy Signature but it didn't work well as they don/t really have spades.

 

[romaz]

Hi Romaz,
the contribution of the Poseidon is remarkable in term of refinement, increasing the full bodied of sound and rendering it so amazingly palpable.
To let you have an idea of impact on each component, I can resume hereafter (in order of great impact on my system):

1. grounding with 2 Apollo SS the negative terminals of Spectral DMA 260
2. grounding one spare unbalanced terminal of the Totaldac D1 Dual via Atlantis cable
3. grounding the balanced output of Totaldac Reclocker via Atlantis cable
4. grounding the balanced input of Spectral DMA 260 via Apollo cable
5. grounding one spare output of Berkeley Alpha USB via an Apollo cable
6. grounding my MAC Mini via one Apollo Earha USB cable

My Poseidon is nicely settled. I've had an Atlantis Eartha cable going to each of my TotalDac monobloc DACs via RCA analog out for the past few weeks. A very solid difference. Darker and more organic presentation and definitely a quieter noise floor. I also have an Apollo Eartha cable going to an empty USB port on my CAD CAT music server. The difference is there but smaller. Today, based on Barry's and Paolo's recommendation, I introduced an Apollo Eartha and connected it to the XLR digital input on the TotalDac reclocker and BINGO! The biggest difference yet. As Paolo said, just a more substantial soundstage. Maybe it's a cumulative benefit, one building on the other, but it's also possible the reclocker was the noisiest device and had the most to gain? Hard to explain. Poseidon is now maxed out but the results are very gratifying. Thank you for your guidance! I would love to ground even more but what an expensive proposition.

 

[caliaripaolo]

Thanks Paolo.
Accords with my experience with my system.
The other top performer was the addition of four balanced Apollo i/cs for my sources. Made a big and immediately audible improvement. Not cheap but very good and I can highly recommend them.
My Poseidon and Apollo clock cable are arriving on Friday morning so I'll report back further on how they work in my system over the weekend. Looking forward to it on the basis of your experience.
Regards,
Barry

Hi Barry,
I'm very curious to have your feedback on that topic.
Another very interesting topic is your experience with Apollo signal cables, this is in my grounding journey, my next step. Did you grounded the cables?

 

[caliaripaolo]

My Poseidon is nicely settled. I've had an Atlantis Eartha cable going to each of my TotalDac monobloc DACs via RCA analog out for the past few weeks. A very solid difference. Darker and more organic presentation and definitely a quieter noise floor. I also have an Apollo Eartha cable going to an empty USB port on my CAD CAT music server. The difference is there but smaller. Today, based on Barry's and Paolo's recommendation, I introduced an Apollo Eartha and connected it to the XLR digital input on the TotalDac reclocker and BINGO! The biggest difference yet. As Paolo said, just a more substantial soundstage. Maybe it's a cumulative benefit, one building on the other, but it's also possible the reclocker was the noisiest device and had the most to gain? Hard to explain. Poseidon is now maxed out but the results are very gratifying. Thank you for your guidance! I would love to ground even more but what an expensive proposition.

Very interesting Romaz.
your experiences are completely consistent with mine.
I didn't tried to overcharge Totaldac with 2 ground terminal of Poseidon connected via Atlantis cables. But I will do it (I need a third Poseidon)

 

[Barry2013]

Hi Barry,
I'm very curious to have your feedback on that topic.
Another very interesting topic is your experience with Apollo signal cables, this is in my grounding journey, my next step. Did you grounded the cables?

Hi Paolo.
Yes all the Entreq signal and speaker cables have their own earth leads so you connect each cable to an Entreq ground box. My i/c cables are grounded to one of my two Silver Tellus which are both hooked up to an Atlantis Tellus. The word clock cable, currently a Konstantin, is also so connected. The intention tomorrow when the Poseidon arrives and the Apollo word clock cable is to connect the clock cable to the Poseidon along with the Vitus amp and the DCS Puccini player.
The speaker cables which are Entreq Challenger have their built in earth cables connected to a separate Silver Minimus.
The negative amp speaker terminals which are connected to two separate Silver Minimus will go to the Silver Tellus I use for the sources using the terminals currently used for the amp and CD input grounding which will allow me to trade in those two Silver Minimus against the cost of the Poseidon.
I am sure there is a cumulative benefit, as Romaz speculates, from using their i/c and speaker cables with the Eartha cables on source/amp inputs. I also find their cables are very user friendly as they are much more flexible than most others and in particular the Nordost Valhallas I had previously.
I'll report further on the Poseidon changes over the weekend.

 

[caliaripaolo]

Hi Paolo.
The speaker cables which are Entreq Challenger have their built in earth cables connected to a separate Silver Minimus.
The negative amp speaker terminals which are connected to two separate Silver Minimus will go to the Silver Tellus I use for the sources using the terminals currently used for the amp and CD input grounding which will allow me to trade in those two Silver Minimus against the cost of the Poseidon.

Hi Barry. Be careful!! It is avoid to connect both negative terminals of Amplifier to the same ground point. Even if you have different terminals, within the Silver Tellus the mix is the same.
Refer to Entreq manual.