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In Reply to: RE: BudP - Ground Loop Tweak posted by DaveT on January 05, 2013 at 19:50:29
I have read that grounding the negative speaker terminal to the basket of the speaker driver can have a similar effect. Maybe someone who has the pigtails already constructed can do a comparison.
Retsel
Follow Ups:
I used to ground the metal baskets to a third binding post and ground to true ground. The effect, while audible, is not as great. You get a lower noise floor and finer musical nuance is revealed.
Not as dramatic as the ground loop.
Stu
Unclestu, thank you for responding to my post. I am not sure from your description that you tried what I suggested.
I am suggesting (based on what others have tried) that instead of hooking up an "electron pool" (a wire that goes to nowhere) to the speaker's negative binding post, that you instead hook up a wire which runs from the speaker's negative binding post to the speaker's basket (which also goes to nowhere). Did you do that? If you did, I would think that you would not want to also run that to ground since you would potentially be setting up a ground loop with your amps. Although, if you listened to your system with and without the speaker baskets hooked to ground, what difference did you notice?
Retsel
People will think I have way too much time on my hands. But, yes, I tried it a while ago. This was when I was experimenting with magnetics, and figured out that one reason why stamped steel baskets sound "bad" is that the steel captures the magnetic field of the speaker magnet. To help alleviate the magnetic inductance, I added copper tape to the metal and then grounded the basket by attaching a wire to the mounting screws. This wire was then lead back to the terminal area and a third terminal (ground) added. I did not attach to speaker negative because I often switch leads to adjust for absolute polarity.I did ground this terminal to the third prong of a duplex outlet, along with the metal speaker stands.
There was an improvement in sound: things appeared a bit clearer, and a bit more dynamic. Sound was "faster" as the drain wire alowed any electrical induction to be dissipated quickly. It was not quite as impressive as the ground loop tweak, however. I tried the grounding also on aluminum and cast baskets, with similar but slightly less dramatic sonic effects.
This lead to a series of experiments with the location of the actual driver. I noticed that non magnetic screws made a noticeable difference, particularly in soundstaging, as the screws themselves causes the hemispherical pattern of a driver to "lobe" coming in at the screws. Brass sounded the best, with stainless coming in second, although I normally use stainless because they are easier to source ( at least phillips head ones, that is).
Arranging the driver so that the voice coil lead outs were vertically oriented also helpd the soundstage dispersion significantly. Also if the voice coil lead outs are grouped at one point, I generally aim that part of the driver towards the other adjacent drivers, as the voice coil leads create a slight "dead" spot and by aiming them at the other driver, the crossover "distortion" is lessened.
Carrying this even further, I experimented with placing tiny strips of tape on the cones themselves. This forces the cones to break up into more orderly "eigenmodes". Most cones are symmetrical and only the voice coil attachment points break up that symmetry. By placing a 1/16 inch by 3/16 the inch piece of tape dead top and bottom of a speaker cone, you can force the cone to break up into a symmetrical left/right pattern. This actually noticeably increases the sense of stereo separtion as the cones are now forced to be left/right symmetrical. Height suffers slightly as you can not do this to a tweeter without seriously endangering its function, although if you have SEAS type tweeters with the mesh covering, you can replicate the experience by placing tape on the mesh itself.
Did have some serious issues with the tape on a Lowther, and had to cut down the size, as it seemed to slow the driver down. If worried, use an exacto knife and that low adhesive blue painters tape. Easy to remove without any damage.
YMMV , obviously,
stu
Edits: 01/10/13
I appreciate the extra level of detail. This allows me to learn and compare to various things I have attempted.
DaveT
for being so verbose.... Should have kept quieter.
Stu
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