Taiko Audio SGM Extreme : the Crème de la Crème

[microstrip]

(...) There has to be a very low resistance to "sink" the stray equipment ground plane currents.

Steve Z

Although the low resistance is healthy in case of an hazard behavior, going to very low resistance is meaningless - due to inductance, a 10 meter ground wire will have an impedance of tens of ohm at 1MHz and kohms at 100 MHz. When debating noise what matters most is the
impedance of a line, not the DC resistance.

The purpose of devices such as the Shunyata Altair or the Nordost Qkore is to overcome ground noise due to poor or different grounding or signal wiring practices of equipment manufacturers. If manufacturers did their jobs properly according to a set of standard rules we will not need them ...

 

[Zeotrope]

2.5 mm to 2.1 mm adapters are readily available.

double check the polarity since I don’t know what is standard. My Sony CD player is opposite from my Kaleidescape, for example. At best, you will blow a fuse if you get it wrong…

 

[Kris]

I did that a year ago and it was a little worst , but will repeat Testing,
If you recommend it I might miss something. Grounding ?
I also had the same ground for Network devices and a system.
should I put them on a separate phase, neutral and ground ?

He did it again !
I must say Emile is the best .

Replaced the phase and neutral of all swiches and router to the second socked powered from second phase and it was worst Again as I mentioned before BUT this time I noticed that I missed something .
This phase was not on DC blocker !
I added a second DC blocked and miracle happened . It is better now not worst.
Thank you Emile.
The difference is quite impressive .

 

[CKKeung]

I have asked Ben of Volent HK to reserve a set of ethernet card+switch for me.

I will be powering the switch with my Ediscreation Firebird LPS.

 

[marty]

double check the polarity since I don’t know what is standard. My Sony CD player is opposite from my Kaleidescape, for example. At best, you will blow a fuse if you get it wrong…

I don't know what you are referring to. Adapters do not change polarity.

 

[MarkusBarkus]

...I *think* he means the center pin polarity of the plug.

 

[cmarin]

Wouldn’t a product like the Shunyata Altaira grounding system eliminate the need for a complex in-ground grounding solution?

In my case, the enhanced in-ground grounding system was complemented by two Computer Audio Design GC-R (Ground Control Reference) signal grounding boxes (one box for sources and another for the amps) that resulted in an enhanced lowering of the noise floor beyond just the in-ground grounding system.

The compound grounding system, together with the latest Extreme/XDMS Alpha software, has led to the most musical/engaging sound I’ve ever experienced in my system by a significant margin. YMMV.

A link to the CAD GC-R review by Hi-Fi+:

http://computeraudiodesign.com/HIFI+_GC-R_Review.pdf

 

[RUIN*ish]

Just wanted to share my solutions to Lightning and impedance....

The company I used in two homes: www.lightningprotection.com DBA - Lightningeliminators.com
Go to: grounding and earthing tab
I use their chemical rod system with augment ground fill (creates it's own field) - which is attached to a dedicated Equitech10kva balanced transformer...
I normally need to refill the salts every 6 months or so. This grounding system is separate from the house ground.
Our house was hit by lightning this past Summer. I know for a fact that not only is my impedance extremely low, that this grounding system saved my hifi. Can't say the same for the rest of the house as we had multiple items fried....

The following are a few pdf that describe the products:

https://www.lightningprotection.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/chemrod-updated.pdf

https://www.lightningprotection.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/gaf.pdf

https://www.lightningprotection.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Lecweld-English-revised-brochure-copy.pdf

Marc

 

[Zeotrope]

I don't know what you are referring to. Adapters do not change polarity.

@MarkusBarkus replied. You don’t want to get the barrel connector polarity wrong. There is no standard. I have a Sony CDP and a Kaleidescape, each is different from the other.

 

[Cyrus]

Team Oranje loss still hurts.

 

[Sablon Audio]

@MarkusBarkus replied. You don’t want to get the barrel connector polarity wrong. There is no standard. I have a Sony CDP and a Kaleidescape, each is different from the other.

I fully agree that polarity is critical however the standard protocol for barrel plugs is centre hot / outer negative. That said, all manner of equipment manufacturers do whatever they damn well want!

 

[Nils]

Update from Shunyata Altaira test-event at my Dealer's

System: Innous PhenixNet switch, Antipodes K50 streamer, MSB Premier Pre+DAC + S202 Amp, Piega Coax 711 speakers, Shunyata cabling, Shunyata Everest power distributor

Experiment: One Altaira Chassis grounding hub, one Altaira Signal grounding hub, Alpha-level (so silver-based) low-impedence grounding cables.

Method: adding chassis grounding component-by-component, adding signal-grounding component-by-component (until we ran out of cables!) listening to same track after each change - In the end we did a switch-back to no grounding at all

Findings:
Clear SQ improvements when deploying Altaira -> noise-floor reduced -> more music information revealed.
Biggest incremental steps came when adding signal grounding, single biggest step was when grounding Premier's (unused) AES-input to Altaira Signal.

Grounding is extremely system specific - your mileage will for certain be different -> experiment!
Altaira provides a low-impedence path for noise riding system components' grounding-plane, then isolates (six channels/hub) and filters the noise in Hub (6-12dB @ 3kHz-30MHz Chassis; >6db @ 50kHz-30MHz Signal) and finally sends it off to the system's power distributor's ground plinth.

If all system component's were built following exactly the same principles for chassis- and signal-ground most likely Altaira would not be needed at all - but that is not the current state.

Altaira hubs are ~4 000€ each, cables are a couple of 100€ each -> a complete setup will be around 10 000€

(I have signed up to evaluate an Altaira evaluation kit at home - in my system.)

 

[oldmustang]

Thank you, Nils. I was considering doing the same (evaluation kit). Now moved that up my priorities lists.

Steve Z

 

[simorag]

Speaking about electrical pollution (of which I am supremely ignorant), I was wondering whether a device like a Stromtank would negate (or at least reduce significantly) the need for other power conditioning devices, grounding, linear power supplies, and provide some (most?) of the benefits the upcoming Taiko battery is aimed at.

It would be a significant financial outlay on its own, but at least it would reduce the overall box / cable count, the total cost of multiple devices, and the unknowns about the combined effect of such devices ...

Just wishful thinking?

 

[nonesup]

Update from Shunyata Altaira test-event at my Dealer's

System: Innous PhenixNet switch, Antipodes K50 streamer, MSB Premier Pre+DAC + S202 Amp, Piega Coax 711 speakers, Shunyata cabling, Shunyata Everest power distributor

Experiment: One Altaira Chassis grounding hub, one Altaira Signal grounding hub, Alpha-level (so silver-based) low-impedence grounding cables.

Method: adding chassis grounding component-by-component, adding signal-grounding component-by-component (until we ran out of cables!) listening to same track after each change - In the end we did a switch-back to no grounding at all

Findings:
Clear SQ improvements when deploying Altaira -> noise-floor reduced -> more music information revealed.
Biggest incremental steps came when adding signal grounding, single biggest step was when grounding Premier's (unused) AES-input to Altaira Signal.

Grounding is extremely system specific - your mileage will for certain be different -> experiment!
Altaira provides a low-impedence path for noise riding system components' grounding-plane, then isolates (six channels/hub) and filters the noise in Hub (6-12dB @ 3kHz-30MHz Chassis; >6db @ 50kHz-30MHz Signal) and finally sends it off to the system's power distributor's ground plinth.

If all system component's were built following exactly the same principles for chassis- and signal-ground most likely Altaira would not be needed at all - but that is not the current state.

Altaira hubs are ~4 000€ each, cables are a couple of 100€ each -> a complete setup will be around 10 000€

(I have signed up to evaluate an Altaira evaluation kit at home - in my system.)

Did you try connecting the chassis directly to the Everest poles, comparing it with the connection to Altaira Chasis Ground? I'd be very interested in that comparison.
I'm currently attaching 4 device chassis to Everest poles with cheap generic cables. I have been waiting for an order for 4 Shunyata Alfa ground cables for THREE MONTHS. Sometimes I think that if I served my clients with this speed, the most I could hope for is listening to music on a Sanyo Radio-Cassette.

 

[Nils]

Did you try connecting the chassis directly to the Everest poles, comparing it with the connection to Altaira Chasis Ground? I'd be very interested in that comparison.
I'm currently attaching 4 device chassis to Everest poles with cheap generic cables. I have been waiting for an order for 4 Shunyata Alfa ground cables for THREE MONTHS. Sometimes I think that if I served my clients with this speed, the most I could hope for is listening to music on a Sanyo Radio-Cassette.

My current grounding solution is just that - all components' chassis-earth connected in star-topology to Everest' CGS plinth.
I started with home-made cheap-shit cables - that gave an improvement.
I then switched to better, low-impedence cables (still in star-topology) - that made big SQ improvement -> cable-impedence is important at the frequencies of the ground-noise.

In our test - we started with chassis-ground only, then added signal-grounding.

We also tried removing the chassis-ground (as the biggest incremental SQ uptick was related to signal-ground) - but it was clear that chassis-ground also played a part in the overall SQ effect -> both hubs needed (IN THAT SYSTEM AT LEAST).

Sorry - we did not test using chassis-ground only with Everest CGS - but I will try that when I get the evaluation kit (as this is my current state).

As far as I can tell there are two differences:
A) Altaira Chassis has a built-in filter (I do not think Everest has that for the CGS-plinths - it is not mentioned by Shunyata at least
B) Altaira Chassis has six separate channels (preventing component-to-component ground leaks) - Everest has four CGS plinths but these are interconnected.

So, from engineering perspective Altaira Chassis should be the better solution.

I will let you know after testing it it is worth it or if - Everest CGS - Chassis + Altaira Signal is the price-effective solution (for my system)

The wait for Shunyata deliveries is frustrating, product quality is good though. (The Altaira was supposed to hit the market +1y ago.)

 

[oldmustang]

Speaking about electrical pollution (of which I am supremely ignorant), I was wondering whether a device like a Stromtank would negate (or at least reduce significantly) the need for other power conditioning devices, grounding, linear power supplies, and provide some (most?) of the benefits the upcoming Taiko battery is aimed at.

It would be a significant financial outlay on its own, but at least it would reduce the overall box / cable count, the total cost of multiple devices, and the unknowns about the combined effect of such devices ...

Just wishful thinking?

Stromtank should be very effective at reducing electrical interference from the mains supply. Shunyata's approach addresses component to component interference as well, which would end up occurring "downstream" of a Stromtank or other mains attached device. Differences in ground plane/chassis stray voltage potentials will occur regardless due to the topology and operation of individual components -- this is what Altaira and other "grounding" devices/schema are meant to address.

So it would seem there is a place for both approaches. Mains and component to component.


Steve Z

 

[Kris]

Speaking about electrical pollution (of which I am supremely ignorant), I was wondering whether a device like a Stromtank would negate (or at least reduce significantly) the need for other power conditioning devices, grounding, linear power supplies, and provide some (most?) of the benefits the upcoming Taiko battery is aimed at.

It would be a significant financial outlay on its own, but at least it would reduce the overall box / cable count, the total cost of multiple devices, and the unknowns about the combined effect of such devices ...

Just wishful thinking?

I tried Strometank S5000
It is great device and it lowers the noise significantly if in your area power is bad.
But is expensive.
I was surprised that it has also a very positive effect on Taiko server .
Probably this was due to isolating it form the rest of the system.

But you might also try the Balanced trafos . It is so much cheaper and effective.
I did that installing 7 trafos each for every component .
This way I have each device separated.
Just make sure to get 5x the value your device trafo has. ( 300 kva - 1500 kva balanced)
If you want to use just one big trafo for all system this will be very big and heavy , costy as well.
Probably 3- 5 kva or bigger, depanding on your system components.
Also do not connect it yourself . Ask qualified person to do it for you, Safety first .

Lastly . It is easier to sell Strometank in case you dont like it , or take it with you to New home than do the same with installed balanced trafo solutions.

 

[nonesup]

The wait for Shunyata deliveries is frustrating, product quality is good though. (The Altaira was supposed to hit the market +1y ago.)

Well I wasn't referring specifically to the manufacturer. I was simply wondering what is the added value provided by SOME (not all) importers of audio products.

 

[kennyb123]

I'm currently attaching 4 device chassis to Everest poles with cheap generic cables.

I had been doing this with a couple devices. After a single Venom ground cable arrived, I thought it might be worth continuing to use my cheap cable. No matter what I connected it to, the cheap cable took away from the gains the single Venom brought.

I think you will be very pleased with what you hear when your Shunyata ground cables finally arrive. The Alpha should be excellent.