New Product Test: Ground Box Booster from Heartsound Audio
- Thread starter tommylion
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I strugggled to come up with an appropriate description & swimming seemed best at the time. One skeptic on another forum suggested I just listen to my surround, which is only used for A/V & not 2ch stereo playback.
But even the notion of swimming in music doesn't quite capture what's going on here. It's much more than that. More like being submerged in neutral buoyancy, because what your hearing has way more body, saturation, decay that goes on forever & silent background when the last note in the decay finally disappears. Think slightly more reverb & impossibly long decays.
Performers & instruments are no longer just layers, but instead, they appear in 3D cylindrical fashion which stimulates your brain to visualize each performer & instrument in 360. Remember, the Holos have already portrayed the listening experience in 360 degrees.
The visual allows you to have a much more realistic feel for the acoustics of the room in which the recording was made & that same visual helps to portray the music in a more coherent way.
Experimenting with placement is critical to the desired outcome, but it's very easy to do, since the boxes are only 3"x3" & passive by design. No cords necessary. In fact, I'm prepared to eat crow when I say Holostages significantly outperform several other very pricey, but highly effective room treatments!
Finally, some very bright scientific minds developed Holostages, so it should come as no surprise they are so effective.
More later!
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I know these devices all change the sound. I was at PAF and a room had some pile of magnets or what not on their cables and equipment. A good $20k or more of stuff. The guy did the demo for me. He was pissed and walked out when I said it sounded more natural and alive without. More Hifi with them in place. Its good there is a return policy on these. I returned a ground system I tried as it did nothing. If it did anything, I though I prefered without.
I've been a repeat buyer of these. I have 2 breaker panel boxes (stuck on breaker panel doors), 2 speaker boxes on each amp (wired right into speaker outs), line-level boxes (parallel in signal path), 2 large AC boxes, 1 small AC box, and a bunch of holostages sitting on my equipment. But I do not have the ground box. The speaker boxes seemed to me to be the biggest difference of all that I have, and they sound best plugged into the amps. I set mine right on top of the amps.
“The visual allows you to have a much more realistic feel for the acoustics of the room in which the recording was made & that same visual helps to portray the music in a more coherent way”. Exactly what I hear in my system. I just placed two more Cube Audio Nenuphar II loudspeakers flush with the front baffle. The sense of space is unlike I have ever heard. I have a server which has an unused USB jack which is slated for a USB Grounding Box. Will report the results there next.
Tommy,
I had them laying flat on the Nenuphars. I later moved them to the Nenuphar binding posts and preferred that location. I think you need to keep the Holostage away from Neodymium magnets which are used in the Nenuphar. Tim Mrock had stated that at one time.
I tried the USB Grounding Block today and to say it’s a game changer in fine tuning one’s system is an understatement.
I had them laying flat on the Nenuphars. I later moved them to the Nenuphar binding posts and preferred that location. I think you need to keep the Holostage away from Neodymium magnets which are used in the Nenuphar. Tim Mrock had stated that at one time.
I tried the USB Grounding Block today and to say it’s a game changer in fine tuning one’s system is an understatement.
Jeff… tell me more about your experience with Krissy’s Ground Box? I have one arriving tomorrow.
Tweaks are addidtive and I have done a few other things recently (most impactful was a QSR outlet and a Furutech wall box brace and CF outlet faceplate as well as adding Swiss Digital Fusebox on my transport) so there may have been some late stage break-in still going on and I may not have realized the previous improvement on enough CD s to be fully objectice but I will try to explain the delta with the Heartsoiund GBB. First I placed 4 of her unwired boxes near my componenet's transformers and over the spinning CD and got a nice improvement. Also plugged in a mini AC unit she sent as a gift. First impression was the AC device was a bit more impactfull than the proximity only boxes (1-AC> 4 Boxes). They absolutely break in : good then meh then wonderfull on day 3 and regressed on days 4-5 and about a week of steady improvement after that. Nothing horible just a bit flat and uninteresting.
I have a medium range ground box (Scotish company- cannot recall name) on my AMP chassis which really sweetened tone. I have a smaller box grounding the electronics in each loudspoeaker responsible for powering the woofers. It helped imaging a bit but nothing earthshaking. I attatched the GBB to this smaller box and STAND BACK! How it could get a box that did just a small bit to do more than anything I have done to my system I do not understand but... well everything and "hugely ". Conclusion first ( and I was only home till day 5 and will return from a trip tomorrow on day 11) This (lowish end by the standards of this forum Project CD with LTA power supply , $7.5K Audio Mirror DAC, Goldmund 590 integrated, 15 year old $9K Adam Audio stand mounts) now sounds better than all but one system I have heard in 40+ years( IRS speakers driven by Conrad Johnson Premier One electronics). Clarity is mind bending- understand lyrics I have not for 40 years. It does something psychologically in that lyrics I unerstood linguistically are now recieved with a sense of their meaning that is entirely new. The worst recordings reveal MUSIC in a way that is unreal- Jimi Hendrix was "noise" compared to the virtuousity revealed. I no longer need a remote control as I listen through every time. The microdynamic variations are wondrous and the density is elevated in terms of tone, image and soundstage. Background is NOT blacker- in fact it's not black at all- why is that a good thing? Because black is fake. What I hear in the large space created is the reverberation of the instruments and voices. I have another GBB for the other box on order and the somewaht costly breaker box device she says gives the greatrest improvement as well. I have truly enjoyed the improvements I mentioned from other companies and would reccomend that if you have any fuses in your system you must replace them with SDFB s but once that's done nothing else seems to compare. YMMV (but I doubt it LOL).
Couldn't have put it better myself Jeff. I am on a similar path to yourself and my last SDFB is arriving this week for my dac. Will be very interested in your findings regarding the breaker panel device, was only talking to Krissy about it this weekend.
Only on day 3 with additional HS devices so too early to comment. Re SDFB I found greatest effect on amp, then CD transport and least (though still a +) on DAC (it replaced a SR Master fuse there IDK if that made it a bit more of a trade off but still a bit better for sure).
Have just placed an order with Krissy for the breaker panel box, very much looking forward to trying this.
Still trying to get a handle on it's effect on audio but by day 7 or son the benefit for TV picture (which was beside the point for me ) is MEGA. Never real seen a picture like this.
Just installed my breaker box this evening. Some impressions in week. Other Heartsound products include 10 Holostages & 1 ground box booster.
Before adding the Heartsound Ground Box, I have had all my gear grounding to Synergistic R Active Ground Block. Gold Note integrated chassis ground goes is now connected to Krissy's Ground Box. One member indicated he even grounded his SR Active GB to the Heartsound Ground Box Booster. I have not tried that.
In addition to the fantastic, out of the signal path changes the Holostages made, I found the Ground Box Booster improves upon those, but also tightens everything up. Faster, more articulate bass from the REL, leading edge attack more pronounced, impossibly long decay is even longer, slightly more reverb resulting in an even better feel for the acoustics of the room in which the recording was made & overall more coherent presentation.
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