Shunyata Grounding System

[SCAudiophile]

The Shunyata grounding system looks like a copy of the Puritan Audio grounding system. The literature is much the same, Puritan's being a bit more to the point. I had a Shunyata conditioner and cables, I now have Puritan conditioner and cables, they take much less room, are just as good and a fraction of the price.

We make out own choices, but I found both sets of literature helpful.

I spoke to Mike Lester (Puritan) about the grounding system last week as I was thinking about using it. The problem is that there are three earths, ground, chassis and signal. The chassis and signal earths need to be dealt with separately.

In a nutshell:
- The best chassis ground is a connection to an earth rod, but with UK plugs providing a second route to earth can be fatal, hence the Groundmaster. You put in an earth ground rod and put the Groundmaster between the chassis earth on your conditioner and the cable from your ground rod. The Groundmaster blocks a second route to earth but provides an earth ground.
- If an earth ground connection terrifies you, or you live up an apartment block, the Puritan City is the alternative route to earth ground, sort of.
- The Route Master is a signal star earth, plain and simple.

Shunyata suggest using separate signal ground boxes for analogue and digital components, which seems a bit unnecessary.

http://www.puritanaudiolabs.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Ground-Master-PDF.pdf

http://www.puritanaudiolabs.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/RouteMaster-April-21.pdf

http://www.puritanaudiolabs.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/RouteMaster-Usage-Notes.pdf

I have new house wiring installed in 2021. Every wire is new, starting from the 3-phase supply in the street. It's connected as three separate 100A supplies, one dedicated to the audio. Everything is in galvanised boxing and the short feed (20 ft) to the audio is under about a foot of concrete and stone, in a well shielded NeoTech drained cable. I don't think I have any grounding issues, but I was going to buy a set of Puritan kit just to see if it makes any difference.

Having a well-executed power install and good ground plane for the main panel and any sub-panels is absolutely the first step. The concept of noise on the chassis ground plane of devices and giving them a path to drain that noise is however supplemental to having a good ground foundation in the electrical system.

Saying something "is a copy of...." can be taken to have a different meaning than you may intend. I've heard and read exceptionally good things about the Puritan and other solutions out there so Puritan is clearly a great solution, product and company.

It is however not accurate to say the Shunyata grounding solutions "are a copy of" the Puritan solution. Shunyata has had chassis grounding basic solutions for quite a few years back to the TRITON v3 (and possible others) and the first Altaira "alpha" R&D concept prototype existed in mid-2020 and possibly before that. I know this for a fact as I was one of 2 people that the Altaira prototype was sent to for early validation testing and feedback in that timeframe back when it was a single-box grounding noise elimination system long before Shunyata evolved the technology and approach many times to what it is today and ultimately refined it in last 2021 and early 2022 in to purpose-built (CG or SG) 2-box approach.

The Puritan and Shunyata (and others like CAD, Nordost and many others) both have similar target functionality. I would say however that the Shunyata is definitely 'not a copy' of the Puritan device.

As far as having separate Altaira's for CG and for SG filtering, this is the ultimate specialization. The tuning of the SG Altaira hubs are particular to the higher frequency noise that components produce and cross-pollute each other with across the signal plane. The CG Altair hubs are particularly tuned to the different frequencies of noise that occur on the chassis ground plane.

Again, no negative comments at all towards the Puritan or any other similar solution. The Puritan and others seem to be excellent from all I've read and been told; what is best for a given system as usually comes down to a long list of variables including budget, listening results, etc.

 

[Ron Resnick]

This uses a ferroelectric material to remove noise on the AC.

Please don't misconstrue what might seem like skepticism. I have no opinion a priori, as I have never heard the effect of these interesting devices. I am simply trying to understand the theory underlying the product.

Ferrite core-type materials have been used as EMI/RFI blockers and absorbers for decades. This is a well-accepted practice.

What is special about the ferrite-type material in the Altaira, or about the way the ferrite material is utilized?

 

[kennyb123]

What is special about the ferrite-type material in the Altaira, or about the way the ferrite material is utilized?

This is the patent that is referenced under the listing for NIC on the Altaira page: US8658892B2 - Ferroelectric field coupling device for improved noise reduction in AC power lines - Google Patents. Obviously, this is the same patent that covers NICs in their AC products.

This is how it's described on the Power Distributor Tech page:

The ?ZrCa-2000 is a proprietary compound, used in NICs, that absorbs and dissipates high-frequency noise when used in power conditioners or power supplies. The ?ZrCa-2000 materials are ferroelectric, crystalline materials that act on the electric field similar to the manner in which ferrite (ferrous metals) acts on the magnetic field. Both absorb high frequency noise; however, the ?ZrCa-2000™ compounds do so without the negative sonic side effects commonly associated with the use of ferrite in an audio system.

I didn't find anything on their website that describes how the implementation differs for the grounding product. I did read somewhere though that the tuning is optimized for the kind of noise that's present.

Please don't misconstrue what might seem like skepticism. I have no opinion a priori, as I have never heard the effect of these interesting devices. I am simply trying to understand the theory underlying the product.

Yup, I understood that. I appreciate you trying to understand these things better.

 

[microstrip]

I do not think that attention to resistance to ground (in ohms) should be trivialized. I think a low resistance to ground should be a primary objective of a proper electrical infrastructure.

Can we know what you consider a good quantitative value for resistance to ground and what are the reasons behind your comment?

 

[7ryder]

Maybe this will help shed some light on the Altaira

 

[microstrip]

Calling Altaira a passive hub is deceptive and leaves most of us initially unfamiliar down a path of misconception about its functional attributes beyond a star ground hub configuration Imho. From what I understand, it is only passive in the sense of not directly disturbing the path of dynamic current flow from the mains source. But, of course, its function is anything but passive.

Active or passive component has a precise meaning in electronics. https://circuitglobe.com/difference-between-active-and-passive-components.html . Unless we know the exact details about a power conditioning device and the physics of its mode of operation we can't say if it is passive or active.

The marketing literature on these obscure devices tries to show something simple and persuasive that prospective buyers can read and understand - do not expect it to enlighten us.

 

[ssfas]

Having a well-executed power install and good ground plane for the main panel and any sub-panels is absolutely the first step. The concept of noise on the chassis ground plane of devices and giving them a path to drain that noise is however supplemental to having a good ground foundation in the electrical system.

Saying something "is a copy of...." can be taken to have a different meaning than you may intend. I've heard and read exceptionally good things about the Puritan and other solutions out there so Puritan is clearly a great solution, product and company.

It is however not accurate to say the Shunyata grounding solutions "are a copy of" the Puritan solution. Shunyata has had chassis grounding basic solutions for quite a few years back to the TRITON v3 (and possible others) and the first Altaira "alpha" R&D concept prototype existed in mid-2020 and possibly before that. I know this for a fact as I was one of 2 people that the Altaira prototype was sent to for early validation testing and feedback in that timeframe back when it was a single-box grounding noise elimination system long before Shunyata evolved the technology and approach many times to what it is today and ultimately refined it in last 2021 and early 2022 in to purpose-built (CG or SG) 2-box approach.

The Puritan and Shunyata (and others like CAD, Nordost and many others) both have similar target functionality. I would say however that the Shunyata is definitely 'not a copy' of the Puritan device.

As far as having separate Altaira's for CG and for SG filtering, this is the ultimate specialization. The tuning of the SG Altaira hubs are particular to the higher frequency noise that components product and cross-pollute each other with across the signal plane. The CG Altair hubs are particularly tuned to the different frequencies of noise that occur on the chassis ground plane.

Again, no negative comments at all towards the Puritan or any other similar solution. The Puritan and others seem to be excellent from all I've read and been told; what is best for a given system as usually comes down to a long list of variables including budget, listening results, etc.

I'm not that interested in whether things were copied (most hifi is copied) although the similarities may be coincidental. I've owned both brands.

Grounding and component isolation is not rocket science. The literature is unusually clear for the audio world, Puritan especially so. There are safety issues, quite major ones, as with everything before the IEC socket.

Puritan is one of the few audio companies that has published its financials. In the financial year 2021 it had sales of about $650k, a 50% gross profit margin and a 10% net profit margin. More a charity than a business! Its total advertising and marketing spend was under $10,000. It operates from a small workshop. The Route Master costs £395, the Altaira (which is functionally identical) costs £3,000. I got my Puritan from a dealer who also sells Shunyata, people will pay 8 times more for a brand name and shiny box, it's the legitimate power of branding.

The difference for a lot of people is that a set of 2 or 3 Puritan boxes for $1,000 or less compared to approaching $10,000 for Shunyata makes it one of those audio products that you can try and if it has no benefit it's not painful. There is no doubt that grounding is critical, Puritan just make it more accessible.

I had a product on loan last year from a well known USA manufacturer. It actually had a grounding design fault that resulted in bangs coming out of the speakers every few minutes. The Groundmaster solved the problem. I assume an Altaira would have solved it as well, the supplier happened to be a Puritan dealer and had one to hand. The product had to be redesigned. That was an extreme example, but just illustrates the importance of signal grounding.

My electrics were done to the required professional standards, neat and tidy, all tested and certified and I then had a visit from a national inspector. The previous installation was a death-trap. It's the foundation, many people do it, others overlook it at their peril. (This installation is mounted on marine ply, which is playing ultra safe.)

Here in the UK all single properties have the same external connection installed by a network contractor in the same box (the incoming feed through a metal conduit and the first connection with sealed 100A fuses) and the electricity supplier (the meter). The house owner then makes the connections out of the meter - the black armoured cable).

 

[Ron Resnick]

Can we know what you consider a good quantitative value for resistance to ground and what are the reasons behind your comment?

Rather than derailing this thread, I answered your question on my system thread.

 

[SCAudiophile]

I'm not that interested in whether things were copied (most hifi is copied) although the similarities may be coincidental. I've owned both brands.

Grounding and component isolation is not rocket science. The literature is unusually clear for the audio world, Puritan especially so. There are safety issues, quite major ones, as with everything before the IEC socket.

Puritan is one of the few audio companies that has published its financials. In the financial year 2021 it had sales of about $650k, a 50% gross profit margin and a 10% net profit margin. More a charity than a business! Its total advertising and marketing spend was under $10,000. It operates from a small workshop. The Route Master costs £395, the Altaira (which is functionally identical) costs £3,000. I got my Puritan from a dealer who also sells Shunyata, people will pay 8 times more for a brand name and shiny box, it's the legitimate power of branding.

The difference for a lot of people is that a set of 2 or 3 Puritan boxes for $1,000 or less compared to approaching $10,000 for Shunyata makes it one of those audio products that you can try and if it has no benefit it's not painful. There is no doubt that grounding is critical, Puritan just make it more accessible.

I had a product on loan last year from a well known USA manufacturer. It actually had a grounding design fault that resulted in bangs coming out of the speakers every few minutes. The Groundmaster solved the problem. I assume an Altaira would have solved it as well, the supplier happened to be a Puritan dealer and had one to hand. The product had to be redesigned. That was an extreme example, but just illustrates the importance of signal grounding.

My electrics were done to the required professional standards, neat and tidy, all tested and certified and I then had a visit from a national inspector. The previous installation was a death-trap. It's the foundation, many people do it, others overlook it at their peril. (This installation is mounted on marine ply, which is playing ultra safe.)

Here in the UK all single properties have the same external connection installed by a network contractor in the same box (the incoming feed through a metal conduit and the first connection with sealed 100A fuses) and the electricity supplier (the meter). The house owner then makes the connections out of the meter - the black armoured cable).
View attachment 117649 View attachment 117650

That's a great install you have, and your results with Puritan are another on a growing list of accolades for an excellent product line and company. Very happy for you...

 

[Kingrex]

I'm not that interested in whether things were copied (most hifi is copied) although the similarities may be coincidental. I've owned both brands.

Have you owned an Altaira? An Entreq? Any other ground device outside the Groundmaster?

 

[microstrip]

(...) Grounding and component isolation is not rocket science. The literature is unusually clear for the audio world, Puritan especially so. There are safety issues, quite major ones, as with everything before the IEC socket.

In fact, Puritan literature is just another example of very basic common statements with plenty of poetry "With our unique dissipative shielding the interferences bombarding the cables are absorbed into the dissipative shield, burned up and dissipated as heat – avoiding interference either reaching the conductors or polluting the system earth." I loved the burned up, but also enjoyed the idea of noise and RF bombarding my system!

IMO the fact that grounding and component isolation is not rocket science is what makes this devices obscure and suspicious to many people - officially grounding exists for safety, a properly assembled system has a own ground plane, independent of the earth. Each of these grounding add on's has its sound signature, the only way to evaluate them is listening in our systems, not reading reviews or asking for others advice.

BTW, there is such diversity of systems that we can't group them in a single class for a proper discussion.

 

[Ron Resnick]

This is the patent that is referenced under the listing for NIC on the Altaira page: US8658892B2 - Ferroelectric field coupling device for improved noise reduction in AC power lines - Google Patents. Obviously, this is the same patent that covers NICs in their AC products.

This is how it's described on the Power Distributor Tech page:

The ?ZrCa-2000 is a proprietary compound, used in NICs, that absorbs and dissipates high-frequency noise when used in power conditioners or power supplies. The ?ZrCa-2000 materials are ferroelectric, crystalline materials that act on the electric field similar to the manner in which ferrite (ferrous metals) acts on the magnetic field. Both absorb high frequency noise; however, the ?ZrCa-2000™ compounds do so without the negative sonic side effects commonly associated with the use of ferrite in an audio system.

I didn't find anything on their website that describes how the implementation differs for the grounding product. I did read somewhere though that the tuning is optimized for the kind of noise that's present.


Yup, I understood that. I appreciate you trying to understand these things better.

Very interesting! Good work on finding that patent information!

 

[keithc]

That's a great install you have, and your results with Puritan are another on a growing list of accolades for an excellent product line and company. Very happy for you...

Curious as to the function of the grounding terminal on various power conditioners next to the 20A IEC main plug.
For example, the one on the Puritan PSM156 -- is this supposed to allow chassis grounding of components to the Puritan, and then this goes out the 20A ground pin? Or is this meant to allow parallel grounding of the PSM156 itself via say the Groundmaster?

Same thing for the Shunyata, Synergistic, etc., power conditioners. It seems like the Altaira users are 'grounding' their CGS/SGS units to their Everest or Denali rather than directly to the earth or house ground?

I'm tempted to use the grounding terminal of my Denali for component grounding, but at the same time hooking up the Puritan GMCity to the Shunyata's terminal.

 

[ssfas]

In fact, Puritan literature is just another example of very basic common statements with plenty of poetry "With our unique dissipative shielding the interferences bombarding the cables are absorbed into the dissipative shield, burned up and dissipated as heat – avoiding interference either reaching the conductors or polluting the system earth." I loved the burned up, but also enjoyed the idea of noise and RF bombarding my system!

IMO the fact that grounding and component isolation is not rocket science is what makes this devices obscure and suspicious to many people - officially grounding exists for safety, a properly assembled system has a own ground plane, independent of the earth. Each of these grounding add on's has its sound signature, the only way to evaluate them is listening in our systems, not reading reviews or asking for others advice.

BTW, there is such diversity of systems that we can't group them in a single class for a proper discussion.

It would be quite easy to go through a life of listening to hifi without buying a single power product or ever considering grounding. I bought my first power product from Olson in the early 1980s from their factory shop. I binned it only a few months ago. That product is still in production. They've been making power products since 1961, mostly for schools and hospitals, but also for audio visual. I used that power strip for decades without ever buying another power product or cable.

Our Services - Olson Direct

Corporate Info Our Services Industrial Office Education Healthcare Data Centre Audio Visual Latest Contact Us UK Manufacturing Services From Olson Here at Olson we are the market leading supplier of specialised power distribution units and have been established since 1961. All of our products...

olsondirect.co.uk

For sure, low voltage digital audio has caused far greater awareness of power products generally, if only for component isolation. In my market breakout products included the IsoTek EVO Aquarius conditioner and more recently the iFi Powerstation. There now seems to be widespread awareness of the benefit of low noise DC power supplies.

I think grounding becomes an issue mostly if you have a problem, usually with analogue. It's not rocket science if you understand electrical distribution (which I don't). I think it's a type of product that needs good customer support, like wifi and networking products. Where Puritan is different (like iFi) is that their products are vastly more affordable so far more people are likely to experiment with them for potential benefit.

I certainly agree that power includes many classes of products, many clouded in mystery and confusion.

 

[DetroitVinylRob]

I'm tempted to use the grounding terminal of my Denali for component grounding,

I don’t know why you wouldn’t, when Shunyata Research recommends it.

 

[Kingrex]

I'm tempted to use the grounding terminal of my Denali for component grounding, but at the same time hooking up the Puritan GMCity to the Shunyata's terminal.

I have installed Puritan Ground Master and I bring the ground to the earth ground at the house. Not a ground in the yard.

If puritan needs a good path to ground, a Denali may be a good location. The performance of the Denali is going to be influenced by the branch wire feeding it. That includes how the branch wires are landed in the main panel and the grounding makeup of the main panel.

 

[microstrip]

This is the patent that is referenced under the listing for NIC on the Altaira page: US8658892B2 - Ferroelectric field coupling device for improved noise reduction in AC power lines - Google Patents. Obviously, this is the same patent that covers NICs in their AC products.

This is how it's described on the Power Distributor Tech page:

The ?ZrCa-2000 is a proprietary compound, used in NICs, that absorbs and dissipates high-frequency noise when used in power conditioners or power supplies. The ?ZrCa-2000 materials are ferroelectric, crystalline materials that act on the electric field similar to the manner in which ferrite (ferrous metals) acts on the magnetic field. Both absorb high frequency noise; however, the ?ZrCa-2000™ compounds do so without the negative sonic side effects commonly associated with the use of ferrite in an audio system.

I didn't find anything on their website that describes how the implementation differs for the grounding product. I did read somewhere though that the tuning is optimized for the kind of noise that's present.


Yup, I understood that. I appreciate you trying to understand these things better.

Patents do not tell us how thinks work or if their claims are true, they are filled just to protect an original particular implementation or design for being copied or used by others. In fact we can't patent laws of nature, physical phenomena or abstract ideas. So we can't expect to understand the basics from reading patents. If people really want to know how these devices are supposed to work they must read books on electronics, grounding and psychoacoustics of stereo sound reproduction. But surely my suggested, easier and preferred approach is a mix of faith and experimentation.

 

[Kingrex]

This thread got me thinking. I am not poo poo in Shunyata, but in looking at the Puritan groundmaster and routemaster, it looks like a $950 system of ground box, distributor and wires to equipment. It seems like an interesting starting place. I wrote and asked about a package for signal and chassis. We shall see.

What it also made me consider is altering my designs were system are considering ground boxes and thereby provided a dedicated path to earth ground at the main service.
There are a few ways to address this. It would be system by system. And its just an options. But why not if you have the walls open.
FWIW grounding conductors should be as short as possible and oriented towards earth always. A branch wire path that goes through the duplex, up the wall, across a ceiling, down another wall, through some floors, across more ceiling and into a panel is not near as good as a true dedicated well applied short, downward ground. It might make a difference to really think about how a grounding electrode conductor is run when tying a grounding device to it.

 

[kennyb123]

Patents do not tell us how thinks work or if their claims are true, they are filled just to protect an original particular implementation or design for being copied or used by others. In fact we can't patent laws of nature, physical phenomena or abstract ideas. So we can't expect to understand the basics from reading patents.

Except in the rare case where some interesting background commentary is provided, such as what was done in the patent for which I provided a link above.

 

[microstrip]

Except in the rare case where some interesting background commentary is provided, such as what was done in the patent for which I provided a link above.

The provided background material adds nothing to the operation of the devices - just a short biased summary of materials RF absorption. Ferroelectricity was discovered in the early 1900's and it an important subject of theoretical and applied research. I am a supporter of Shunyata products and Gabriel Caelin research and papers on cables, but can't avoid smiling when I read in this patent " However, as reported by audiophiles that are skilled in the art, in the context of a high-end audio systems, ferroelectric materials, when used for power line noise reduction, tend to have superior sonic characteristics."