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Post by julesd68 on Aug 10, 2021 23:03:37 GMT
It really would be interesting to see what exactly is inside these mystery boxes ...
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Post by John on Aug 11, 2021 5:34:22 GMT
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Post by MartinT on Aug 11, 2021 6:49:05 GMT
It really would be interesting to see what exactly is inside these mystery boxes ... Tourmaline and other crystals & earths. Just think of it as a small focussed piece of mother earth, behaving the same way as real Earth as far as very high frequencies are concerned. |
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Post by petea on Aug 11, 2021 9:11:50 GMT
As I mentioned previously, I have been thinking about and doing some background research into all of this and my hit list of piezoelectric, pyroelectric and conductive minerals and compounds used for RF absorption is at present: Granulated black tourmaline (Schörl) - available in a granular form in large quantities It is both pyroelectric and piezoelectric. Magnetite - available as a powder in large quantities, but it is expensive in its crytsal / granular form. Boron nitride - available as a powder, but relatively expensive. Used industrially as an additive in materials used to block electromagnetic interference. I suspect that black tourmaline is probably the main basis of many of the grounding systems as it is cheap and available readily. It might be mixed with other forms of tourmaline and maybe also smokey quartz to create a 'bespoke' mixture and possibly magnetite, probably as small quantities of the crystaline form to stop it settling out; maybe that is why some vendors recommend to shake them every now and then. One of the more common 'explanations' on how these grounding systems work is that high frequency electromagnetic energy is converted to heat which suggests that a pyroelectric material must be involved, but acting in reverse: normally a change in temperature is applied to a pyroelectric to produce an electrical potential or a mechanical force is applied to a piezoelectric material to produce one. Now there are some fundamental questions here in that the energy required to cause the reverse effects may be quite high, but let us ignore that for now. We'll also ignore the lack of a complete circuit and treat the system as 'single-ended'. The second issue is that you need to conduct the electrical 'contamination' from the ground plane into the minerals which requires intimate contact between the conductor used and the mineral. Most of the grounding boxes use plates / meshes within them to achieve this, but that will only 'work' for those minerals that are in contact with the mesh / plate. However, it may be possible to improve this by using a conductive material as part of the matrix, hence something like magnetite. There are of course systems that do not appear to contain loose material (eg Black Ravioli Eflos) and these may well contain a solid matrix comprised of a mixture of these materials, and maybe its composition gets around the conductance problem. I have commercial grouding boxes by CAD (only UK) and Black Ravioli (UK and Germany), but I have to confess that I have not done any real comparison testing of them in and out of the system and have applied a more faith-based model and assumed that those with better critical hearing than me are right (thanks Martin!  ). I have suspended thoughts on how they can absorb energy while being a single-ended 'circuit' and have treated them as absorbers of some sort that may be acting as the terminal end of an aerial. Discussing this with a friend who works on ultra high frequency (UHF) systems, although he cannot quite understand the physics of what might be going on (and he is a physicist), he confirms that UHF systems do weird things (like not liking bends in cables) and they do use absorbers at end terminations (including inn open network ports - and not just to keep dust out!) and lots of sheet material in the housings and between certain components (to cope with radiated stuff). Now, whenever one describes these grounding systems to an electronics engineer / physicist they all say, surely that is an aerial, or at least the cable and the plates / mesh are. Over at our friends on Audio Science Review when one of the Entreq systems was measured it did indeed appear to act as one even, but with the result of potentially injecting noise into the ground plane rather than taking it out and that certainly makes more sense as a phenomenon than the other way round (and may be why the connecting cables seem to have so much impact). Now, I have never heard any complaints of negative effects of these boxes although I have read comments stating that no improvement could be heard, but I have read / heard many comments about the benefits from seemingly credible sources (yes Martin, you are now officially a SCS!  ), so what is going on? If these devices are indeed aerials are they moving stuff in or out of the ground plane? If out then great, they are indeed 'draining' unwanted noise. If in, then how does one explain the apparent benefit? Now, I have not thought this through fully, but an analogous effect has been niggling away for some time and that is the use of an unsharp mask to increase apparent focus of a photographic image. Most photographers are familiar with its use in editing software either by applying a blurred layer to an image or by just using a focussing action / filter, but it was around long before that and was used in the darkroom in a similar manner. The net effect though is the same and it creates an apparent increase in sharpness by increasing and decreasing the contrast either side of an area where a rapid change in density is occurring. Of course one can do the same thing wherever one finds postive and negative interference and maybe one of the effects observed with grounding boxes is related to this in some way either at the signal end or maybe even at the sound end of a system. As I stated, this is not fully thought through and there may well be fundamental reasons why it cannot be part of the mechanism. Anyway, I still plan to build something once I have all the materials and will write it up when I do. |
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Post by ajski2fly on Aug 11, 2021 9:26:39 GMT
As I mentioned previously, I have been thinking about and doing some background research into all of this and my hit list of piezoelectric, pyroelectric and conductive minerals and compounds used for RF absorption is at present: Granulated black tourmaline (Schörl) - available in a granular form in large quantities It is both pyroelectric and piezoelectric. Magnetite - available as a powder in large quantities, but it is expensive in its crytsal / granular form. Boron nitride - available as a powder, but relatively expensive. Used industrially as an additive in materials used to block electromagnetic interference. I suspect that black tourmaline is probably the main basis of many of the grounding systems as it is cheap and available readily. It might be mixed with other forms of tourmaline and maybe also smokey quartz to create a 'bespoke' mixture and possibly magnetite, probably as small quantities of the crystaline form to stop it settling out; maybe that is why some vendors recommend to shake them every now and then. One of the more common 'explanations' on how these grounding systems work is that high frequency electromagnetic energy is converted to heat which suggests that a pyroelectric material must be involved, but acting in reverse: normally a change in temperature is applied to a pyroelectric to produce an electrical potential or a mechanical force is applied to a piezoelectric material to produce one. Now there are some fundamental questions here in that the energy required to cause the reverse effects may be quite high, but let us ignore that for now. We'll also ignore the lack of a complete circuit and treat the system as 'single-ended'. The second issue is that you need to conduct the electrical 'contamination' from the ground plane into the minerals which requires intimate contact between the conductor used and the mineral. Most of the grounding boxes use plates / meshes within them to achieve this, but that will only 'work' for those minerals that are in contact with the mesh / plate. However, it may be possible to improve this by using a conductive material as part of the matrix, hence something like magnetite. There are of course systems that do not appear to contain loose material (eg Black Ravioli Eflos) and these may well contain a solid matrix comprised of a mixture of these materials, and maybe its composition gets around the conductance problem. I have commercial grouding boxes by CAD (only UK) and Black Ravioli (UK and Germany), but I have to confess that I have not done any real comparison testing of them in and out of the system and have applied a more faith-based model and assumed that those with better critical hearing than me are right (thanks Martin! ). I have suspended thoughts on how they can absorb energy while being a single-ended 'circuit' and have treated them as absorbers of some sort that may be acting as the terminal end of an aerial. Discussing this with a friend who works on ultra high frequency (UHF) systems, although he cannot quite understand the physics of what might be going on (and he is a physicist), he confirms that UHF systems do weird things (like not liking bends in cables) and they do use absorbers at end terminations (including inn open network ports - and not just to keep dust out!) and lots of sheet material in the housings and between certain components (to cope with radiated stuff). Now, whenever one describes these grounding systems to an electronics engineer / physicist they all say, surely that is an aerial, or at least the cable and the plates / mesh are. Over at our friends on Audio Science Review when one of the Entreq systems was measured it did indeed appear to act as one even, but with the result of potentially injecting noise into the ground plane rather than taking it out and that certainly makes more sense as a phenomenon than the other way round (and may be why the connecting cables seem to have so much impact). Now, I have never heard any complaints of negative effects of these boxes although I have read comments stating that no improvement could be heard, but I have read / heard many comments about the benefits from seemingly credible sources (yes Martin, you are now officially a SCS! ), so what is going on? If these devices are indeed aerials are they moving stuff in or out of the ground plane? If out then great, they are indeed 'draining' unwanted noise. If in, then how does one explain the apparent benefit? Now, I have not thought this through fully, but an analogous effect has been niggling away for some time and that is the use of an unsharp mask to increase apparent focus of a photographic image. Most photographers are familiar with its use in editing software either by applying a blurred layer to an image or by just using a focussing action / filter, but it was around long before that and was used in the darkroom in a similar manner. The net effect though is the same and it creates an apparent increase in sharpness by increasing and decreasing the contrast either side of an area where a rapid change in density is occurring. Of course one can do the same thing wherever one finds postive and negative interference and maybe one of the effects observed with grounding boxes is related to this in some way either at the signal end or maybe even at the sound end of a system. As I stated, this is not fully thought through and there may well be fundamental reasons why it cannot be part of the mechanism. Anyway, I still plan to build something once I have all the materials and will write it up when I do. Smoke and crystals  |
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Post by MartinT on Aug 11, 2021 9:48:41 GMT
Discussing this with a friend who works on ultra high frequency (UHF) systems, although he cannot quite understand the physics of what might be going on (and he is a physicist), he confirms that UHF systems do weird things (like not liking bends in cables) and they do use absorbers at end terminations (including inn open network ports - and not just to keep dust out!) and lots of sheet material in the housings and between certain components (to cope with radiated stuff). I'm using thought experiments overtime but to me it seems that a grounding box can be open-ended (no complete circuit) if it behaves just like grounding a cable to mother Earth, both for safety and for absorbing high frequency noise. A grounding box is far too small to be useful for safety, but for high frequencies, especially if it does convert such signals to heat, it makes sense and no return circuit is required. Nice theory about the unsharp mask, but I don't buy it as I'm hearing new fine detail, not just better defined transients. I'm also more aware of tape noise on older recordings, another variation on fine detail, although not so welcome! |
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Post by John on Aug 11, 2021 13:06:08 GMT
Rather than have a debate about grounding on Martin thread I thought the debate about grounding warrants its own thread. I can see that something like this divides opinions from the its all tosh to its works for me. Personally I am quite happy with the differences in thoughts and hopefully we can have a good debate.
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Post by Slinger on Aug 11, 2021 13:45:56 GMT
Let me start out by saying that none of those categories frames a definitive answer for me. That's the nature of polls though, there is no one-size-fits-all set of questions.
My immediate reaction to most of these arcane, flavour-of-the-month, weird, and wonderful "improvements," (How does connecting a box of dirt to my consumer unit benefit what's issuing from my speakers?) is Snake Oil, but I would never brand them such without trying them. I don't believe posh fuses work, unless they're colouring the sound somehow, or you had incredibly shit fuses in the first place, but I've never tried them, so I can't make a definitive criticism. People tell me they work, and good luck to them if they can hear an improvement, it's their money to spend as they see fit. If I had a large disposable income and I was desperate to improve the system that, according to my last comments on it, was pretty well perfect and could only be improved upon in microscopic amounts, I might end up buying some too. Same with grounding.
Were my system a lot better than it already is, in a decent, dedicated listening space, with a dedicated mains supply, I might come to grounding eventually when I'd exhausted the more mundane attempts at improvement. I don't think it would make any perceivable difference to my system(s) at the moment though so it would be pointless trying it as I could not make a decently informed judgement call on its efficacy.
Are they Snake oil until proved otherwise? Can I say "Yes" I'd give it a go but only with a high(er) end setup? Somewhere between the two? Why am I rambling? All good questions.
Here's my set of poll questions.
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Post by John on Aug 11, 2021 14:20:41 GMT
Happy to edit the poll
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Post by Slinger on Aug 11, 2021 14:28:36 GMT
No, don't take my word for it...or anything come to that. I just don't think you can have definitive answers like " Yes it works," for instance, when the results will always be subjective. Perhaps " Yes, it works for me" would be more accurate? |
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Post by MartinT on Aug 11, 2021 14:39:01 GMT
Your categories look good, Paul, but I'm not sure we can edit the poll now?
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Post by John on Aug 11, 2021 15:00:57 GMT
On my page the poll shows as changed
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Post by Slinger on Aug 11, 2021 15:08:14 GMT
On my page the poll shows as changed I see the changes, John. |
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Post by MikeMusic on Aug 11, 2021 15:20:37 GMT
Learning from the boss how to split a hair .... my category would be
I have tried a grounding box and it works for me
and this is only connecting input and output sockets to a grounding box.
Connecting a grounding box to the earth in a mains socket was marginal
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Post by ajski2fly on Aug 11, 2021 15:31:21 GMT
Rather than have a debate about grounding on Martin thread I thought the debate about grounding warrants its own thread. I can see that something like this divides opinions from the its all tosh to its works for me. Personally I am quite happy with the differences in thoughts and hopefully we can have a good debate. Well, I was and still am interested to a certain point, and that certain point is due to the exorbitant prices I see for some of the grounding source boxes, 'Entreq' products being a good example. A box that costs hundreds of pounds or even with some bits in it that may or may not do something when connected to your hifi components, with no empirical proof that it is making improvement, leaves me a bit cold However over two years ago whilst recovering form an operation I used some of my time investigating what was in these boxes and as had been said above they contain a mix of:- Granulated black tourmaline (Schörl) - available in a granular form in large quantities It is both pyroelectric and piezoelectric. Magnetite - available as a powder in large quantities, but it is expensive in its crytsal / granular form. Boron nitride - available as a powder, but relatively expensive. Used industrially as an additive in materials used to block electromagnetic interference and in a few other cases some other stuff is thrown in for good measure. What I did form an opinion on was that nearly all the manufacturers selling these products, refused point blank to state what was in their particular boxes or the ratios of mix, most said it was proprietary and having spent many hours and costs on evaluation and testing (no factual measurements supplied), so presumably they mean listening, they would not release any information. This is unfortunately a familiar trait in the 'HiFi' world IMHO, the long raging cable arguments being a great example where a manufacture makes big brush statements about the benefits of his cable architecture and the type of conductor used but with nothing to support the claims or even a baseline to compare against. Some say that their design and the box construction is critical to getting a good result, and that you have to use their cables in conjunction with it to make it work(where have we heard that before?). I continued with my investigations and eventually came across a video, I think on Youtube with a chap discussing grounding boxes, just an ordinary chap who like me wanted to form an informed opinion about these things without being bamboozled by those wanting to sell their costly stuff, see the video, I suspect he does not state what he is using due the reasons I outline below. his video is pretty self explanatory. So what you need is a combination of minerals, that are Ferroelectric, paramagnetic, and piezoelectric. Ferroelectric:- Barium Titanate (BaTiO3) www.ebay.co.uk/itm/254797782545 pretty costly and is HARMFULLLead Titanate (PbTiO3) is TOXIC ( It irritates skin, mucous membranes and eyes. It may also cause harm to unborn babies and might have effects on fertility.[5] WikiLead Zirconate Titanate is HIGHLY HAZARDOUSLead Lanthanum Zirconate Titanate is HIGHLY HAZARDOUSLead Magnesium Niobate is noted as a DANGEROUS material all the above seem to be primarily sold in powder form and are expensive, I would advise against anyone purchasing or experimenting with them, which is why they are not readily available.
Magnetite is relatively safe is seen as a Lodestone and used in Reiki. see www.inoxia.co.uk/products/chemicals/inorganic-compounds/magnetite-powder granular size is between 3mm and 8mm so would be ok in a box.
Granulated Black Tourmeline Black Tourmaline
Paramagnetic Materials see metals.comparenature.com/en/paramagnetic-metals/style-78 I have yet to find a source, note some are TOXIC, I leave you to investigate. Boron Nitrate is Warning Hazard Statements H319-H335 Highly TOXIC GHS hazard statements H319, H335, H413
Piezoelectric materials - forget it as far as I can find out any material with these properties is expensive and usually harmful, unless someone can tell me otherwise. I intend at some point to make my own grounding box using a 2 bottle wine box, I will stick to safe materials Granulated Black Tourmeline, Magnetite, and if can source any some safe Paramagnetic Materials. I suspect that this is what will be in most commercial grounding boxes as selling any with the above mentioned HARZARDOUS materials would be total stupidity. If anyone else has any information that would be helpful it would be most welcome. |
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Post by julesd68 on Aug 11, 2021 15:47:24 GMT
I cannot answer the poll in its current form LOL.
I would be -
'I haven't tried a grounding box but keep an open mind'
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Post by petea on Aug 11, 2021 16:31:11 GMT
It doesn't quite fit my. "I have tried them and have been too lazy to see if they improved things, so left them in!".
Most materials that are pyroelectric are piezoelectric as well and that include tourmaline and sveral forms of quartz.
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Post by John on Aug 11, 2021 16:40:44 GMT
😒
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Post by John on Aug 11, 2021 16:48:19 GMT
I think prices can very quite a lot I certainly cannot afford to pay some of the more crazy prices that why I had to go the Chinese route
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Post by julesd68 on Aug 11, 2021 17:17:17 GMT
I can't really comment any further until I have built and tested my grounding box. I've had the bits and pieces for so long but with such restricted access to my system it just hasn't been a priority.
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). I have suspended thoughts on how they can absorb energy while being a single-ended 'circuit' and have treated them as absorbers of some sort that may be acting as the terminal end of an aerial. Discussing this with a friend who works on ultra high frequency (UHF) systems, although he cannot quite understand the physics of what might be going on (and he is a physicist), he confirms that UHF systems do weird things (like not liking bends in cables) and they do use absorbers at end terminations (including inn open network ports - and not just to keep dust out!) and lots of sheet material in the housings and between certain components (to cope with radiated stuff).
), so what is going on?
