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Installed Gutwire Perfect Ground Cable based on strength of Six Moons.com review (Blue Moon award winner). The single rca plug is connected to an unused input on my Pathos TT integrated and the AC connector is plugged into an unused wall socket. It isn't broken in yet, but there is an immediate improvement (reduction of the noise floor, etc.) consistent with the review.
Wasn't going to bother with grounding boxes (e.g.,Entreq) because of their cost, but the Gutwire cable at under $300 is worth trying.
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Hello,
If what you are fighting (sound wise) is different parts (boxes) of your system having slightly different ground voltages and that gives currents flowing in you interconnects (shields), you may want to try this:
Take a thick flexible wire (I use 10 gauge very flexible wire) clean the paint off around a chassis screw on each piece of equipment and run a connection between each piece. Gives a lower resistance connection for ground current to flow and then the rca connectors shields don't conduct much at all. I do try to keep the ground wire routed close to the interconnects so as to keep loop area down. Has worked well for the two systems I have tried it on so far.
Here is Gutwire's description of what their cable does. Not sure the solution you described addresses the same issue.
"Our ground cable provides the shortest path to ground from the circuit board. Why do you need extra grounding when the ground already exists between your equipment and the wall? If you open up the chassis of any equipment, you'll notice that the circuit board ground may not be directly connected to the ground of the IEC inlet. Our ground cable directly grounds circuit board to earth ground. It drains away any noise the circuit board may have".
Well,
You are certainly free to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on this "problem". I can't make anyone try something that takes less than an hour to do for a couple of dollars. Personally I like to try using engineering rather than just throwing money and hoping at making things better.
Wasn't fighting anything - my system sounded great before adding the Gutwire Perfect Ground Cable, and audibly better after I added it.
With Entreq and others asking $3K and more for a wooden box filled with earth (albeit well reviewed) I thought I'd try a product that promised to do the same thing for under $300.
It works.
Sure, no problem. But my "fix" for the grounding cost me a piece of scrap wire, some spade lugs and a piece of sandpaper to remove a bit of paint. Personally prefer beer to overpriced fixes.
I have the entry level cable also and am selling mine to buy the upper level. Same findings as yours and the review..Great price point improvement..
Very good info....these cables are quite a bit less pricey than other grounding products. Thanks, Dave.
It appears to be a RCA cable that has only the ground shield attached to the ground pin on a power plug, at least it does to me. If that's the case, couldn't someone DIY this if they're willing to accept something that is less than elegant in appearance?
"It appears to be a RCA cable that has only the ground shield attached to the ground pin on a power plug, at least it does to me. If that's the case, couldn't someone DIY this if they're willing to accept something that is less than elegant in appearance? "
Any competently engineered electronic device already has a safe and reliable ground connection making this absurd cable superfluous. If one wanted to add noise to your system by creating a ground loop, one could, as you say, just make a cable with an RCA plug on one end connected only to the ground sleeve and a electrical plug at the other end connected only to the ground pin and have the same thing for a couple of dollars. The difference would be you wouldn't have the magic Ubame oak charcoal from Japan which purportedly absorbs EMI and RF as well as having the unique and unbelievable property of emitting negative ions!
Audio tweaks are a strange phenomenon. One person's success is another's failure, condemned as an item arriving directly from a UFO that landed in Roswell.
I decided to give the ground cable a try. Took an old laptop power cord (each of the 3 wires appeared to be around 20ga) that was no longer in use and cut off the ends. Trimmed down two power wires about 1 inch leaving the green ground available for attachment. Then took an old RCA male and unsoldered the previous negative (ground) connection. Soldered in the green ground wire.
For the AC end I took a 3 wire AC plug and connected the end of the green ground wire to the green ground. The two power wires were trimmed back, so there was no chance of connection.
Then I took a small bit of Stillpoints ERS (RF absorbing) material that was left over from a previous tweak experiment from around 10 years ago and wrapped it on the inside of the AC Plug shell before reinstalling the cover.
Attached the new ground cable to my Schiit Bifrost 4490 DAC through the RCA digital input. The AC end went into the power grid.
Fortunately, nothing fried. How is the sound; more detailed, tighter, somewhat more relaxed with a bit more air. Noticed a bit of sibilance in female voices. Overall, perhaps a bit tweaked up in the high end. But, this cable is certainly not broken in and who know where the sound will be in 25-100 hours.
My humble experiment indicates there may be something to the Gutwire Perfect Ground Cable. Not in every system, but it may offer success with some equipment.
There is definitely something going on and that something is a ground loop. If your unit is from a competent engineer, then it already has a robust ground connection. When you add a second ground you are by definition creating a ground loop. If the two ground paths are not exactly equal in resistance, the loop with the greatest resistance will develop a voltage across it. That voltage is the source of the hum and noise that is created by the ground loop.
The engineer that designed your gear actually knew what he was doing. Defeating his carefully engineered grounding scheme by intentionally creating a ground loop is absurd.
Is having differing ground potential voltages different than ground loops?
If it isn't different, then we all have ground loops, because each component does have its own third prong, which we are advised not to disconnect.
So then If we all have ground loops, those systems with less noise must have less critical loops.
And what would constitute a less critical loop? less variance of voltage to ground potential between components?
So a bad ground loop that caused a loud buzz has a huge ground potential voltage on a component?
Lacking an engineering background, my view of an audio system may be a bit different and perhaps less educated.
There are four links in the chain; computer storage, dac, preamplifier and amplifier. Each has a power cord with ground drain (3rd prong on electrical plug). The chain is connected by means of unbalanced RCA plugs. The ground cable provides an additional ground drain to the system.
A brief update - after 10 hours of running in the test cord it's still a bit edgy. I prefer my music a bit more rounded, but I plan at least 25-50 hours before making a decision as to whether the test cord is an improvement or another home built audio tweak that didn't make the grade. Also, consider there are major differences between the test cord and the real product, the Gutwire Perfect Ground Cable.
After 25 hours of inconclusive results connected to the dac I switched the test ground cable over to an unused rca on the preamplifier. Quite a change! The audio qualities produced are in line with those reported in the Six Moons.com review.
Now, on to tweaking combinations of wire and plugs to produce optimum results in the home audio system.
Curious if the wall outlet needs to be fully grounded to reap the benefits. Thoughts?
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