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CAD grounding box, eliminating 'noise'

fas42

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And they use the same adjectives for everything they review....
Anything that genuinely improves the quality of playback will cause subjective changes like that - I've been hearing variations that I could use those adjectives to describe while I've tweaked the weaknesses out of the bits of gear I've played with over the decades - it goes with the territory :D. This is, sorta, how one knows one is getting somewhere ... :p.
 

fas42

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Not to Earth.

The original "I'm an EE so I know things you can only imagine!" silliness, which for some reason, you have chosen to defend:

"One of the laws of electronics is that electrical current (like water) will always take the easiest path down into the earth."
Okay, earth is at one end of the circuit, that's a point in the electrical path. Are we talking a local earth in the equipment, the earth back at the power generator, the grounding rod outside the house, the vast bulk of dirt and gravel under the house, an average of the "ambient" static voltage within the listening room? ... These are all different "earths" ...
 

amirm

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Anything that genuinely improves the quality of playback will cause subjective changes like that - I've been hearing variations that I could use those adjectives to describe while I've tweaked the weaknesses out of the bits of gear I've played with over the decades - it goes with the territory :D. This is, sorta, how one knows one is getting somewhere ... :p.
That's because you too use faulty audio evaluation methodology. You are going nowhere I am afraid with that method
 

fas42

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Not to Earth.

The original "I'm an EE so I know things you can only imagine!" silliness, which for some reason, you have chosen to defend:

"One of the laws of electronics is that electrical current (like water) will always take the easiest path down into the earth."

Okay, I've just noted exactly what you disputed is surrounded by two sentences. Which places what the middle sentence really is meant to say :
For example, say
something goes wrong with an audio component and the mains power ‘live’ wire becomes
disconnected and touches the metal case, making the case itself live. One of the laws of
electronics is that electrical current (like water) will always take the easiest path down into
the earth. In the absence of a mains earth connection, if you were to touch the live case
then that ‘easiest path’ would be through you.

This is talking about the safety aspect of earthing, and makes 100% sense in this context!
 

fas42

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That's because you too use faulty audio evaluation methodology. You are going nowhere I am afraid with that method
I would dispute that :D ... I end up listening to systems which give immense listening satisfaction; which allow me to play "difficult" or "bad" recordings at high volumes, and give me pleasure in the listening. They don't sound like an "over cooked" audio system; they give me the same buzz as when hearing live sound. If I'm using a faulty method to evaluate, etc, then all I can say is, give me more of it! ;)
 

RayDunzl

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Okay, earth is at one end of the circuit

Earth (as in THE planet Earth) is in parallel to any circuits I have here concerning audio reproduction.

Earth (as in THE planet Earth) is not a destination nor even a conductive path to be considered for anything beyond static electric discharge (from walking across the carpet wearing insulating footwear on a dry winter day and touching a metal case) and lightning strikes.

This is talking about the safety aspect of earthing, and makes 100% sense in this context!

That "Earth" wire at the audio equipment connects to the Neutral at the Breaker Box. It provides a low resistance return to the power company during a Hot to Case fault, not to cause those electrons to burrow "down into the earth" as stated by Mr EE with a dubious product to push.
 

fas42

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Earth (as in THE planet Earth) is in parallel to any circuits I have here concerning audio reproduction.

Earth (as in THE planet Earth) is not a destination nor even a conductive path to be considered for anything beyond static electric discharge (from walking across the carpet wearing insulating footwear on a dry winter day and touching a metal case) and lightning strikes.



That "Earth" wire at the audio equipment connects to the Neutral at the Breaker Box. It provides a low resistance return to the power company during a Hot to Case fault, not to cause those electrons to burrow "down into the earth" as stated by Mr EE with a dubious product to push.
Well, as I noted in the post above the chap is talking about you, a human, touching a metal box at live mains voltage - then whatever is underneath you, etc, becomes very relevant to The Earth - you are highly likely to the best conductive path in this situation.

'electrons to burrow "down into the earth" ' ?? - in relation to the above situation, this is something entirely different, if we're talking normal functioning of the equipment. Where's the connection in what he states in the papaer?
 

RayDunzl

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You're absolutely right, in all aspects, discussed and not, and I am wrong. How could I be such a fool.

Good day.
 

Blumlein 88

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Earth (as in THE planet Earth) is in parallel to any circuits I have here concerning audio reproduction.

Earth (as in THE planet Earth) is not a destination nor even a conductive path to be considered for anything beyond static electric discharge (from walking across the carpet wearing insulating footwear on a dry winter day and touching a metal case) and lightning strikes.



That "Earth" wire at the audio equipment connects to the Neutral at the Breaker Box. It provides a low resistance return to the power company during a Hot to Case fault, not to cause those electrons to burrow "down into the earth" as stated by Mr EE with a dubious product to push.

I cannot believe the near serendipity of your post. I was earlier in the evening thinking about the carpet electric static thing.

I planned to use it to market some new cables.

You know how you were a kid and scraped across carpet with sneakers and then touched an object on the other side of the room transferring (with a little spark) an electric charge? Well that is the way current flows. Electrons scrape across a rough resistive surface and bump into another electron transferring the charge and it repeats over and over billions of time each second for even a small current. Now imagine the little kid gets rubber wheeled roller skates with charge collecting brushes rubbing against the wheels. With less effort, and more speed a greater charge is built going across the carpet and a bigger spark is transferred across the other side of the carpet. Our cables are like that. More charge, more smoothly with less resistance or disturbance. We liked to call it HyperCharging (trademarked). Cables with Hypercharging capability result in an inky black background of serenity against which expressive music can call forth emotion hither too obscured by conventional low charge conducting cable construction. It really is opening a vista of new worlds you didn't know possible. Each recording becomes a new world to be explored. The inner communication laid bare as if enlightenment has been achieved. It will seem like magic, but it is the result of solid engineering commissioned via NASA. You ears won't believe you.
 

Ken Newton

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One of the signs that someone is attempting to sell you snake-oil is when any rational explanation of the functioning of a product is absent. While the efficacy, or the significance of some benefit may be debatable, an rational explanation for that benefit should not be absent.

I've said before that while I often don't find published specifications to adequately define the the sound of many components, I also do not believe in audio magic. I believe that if the sound is different, then the signal is also different. If the signal is different, the reason for that difference is subject to the known laws of physics.
 

fas42

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You're absolutely right, in all aspects, discussed and not, and I am wrong. How could I be such a fool.

Good day.
Things are not black and white in audio, is one thing that has whacked me hard over the head, through the years. I've been getting "interesting" behaviours when doing all sorts of things, and a lot hasn't made sense, certainly at the time when it happened. Part of the learning process is trying to understand this sort of stuff, and there has been real insight at times. What hasn't changed is, that the behaviours never go away after a while, because I realise that I'm "fooling myself" - the sort of things I hear that's right, or wrong, with any audio playback I come across, hasn't changed in decades.

And a key part of the causes is noise interference - that is brilliantly clear, to me. Anyway who delves into countering these is interesting to me, because he may have a key part of the puzzle in place - even though his explanation isn't 100% watertight, or even vaguely close to being sound.

So, sorry I've bugged you - that most certainly wasn't the intention ...
 

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These guys have found another solution to what should be an inaudible problem in competently designed gear, Franks home theater in a box where he can hear these things (high noise and hiss and what not) does not make them problems in competently designed systems. While there are ground currents, there are noise voltages all over your cabinets and coming from a resistor just setting there and everything else, is it an audible problem in your system? In fact, for many of us tube lovers, a slight bit of noise is NOT a problem at all. Same with tape, that noise dither may smooth out some of the higher harmonics that we don't like to hear.

I have a ultra cheap ($20.00)Lepai class T amp, it powers some ultra cheap (pioneer SP-BS22-LR $130.00) speakers, with my lap top as the source via a three feet fairly cheap cable. When I unplug the cable from my laptop, and turn the Lepai all the way up, I hear no noise from the speakers at my listening position (which is near field). If I plug that cable into the computer out jack, and turn the Lepai volume all the way up, yeah I hear some (lots really) noise. But I don't experience that with my main system, I don't hear any noise at my listening position with 440 watts per channel and my entire audio chain connected. So, yes, while it is measurable and there, if you cant hear it, IT, is not a problem IMO.
 
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Thomas savage

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It connects to either the safety ground OR signal ground, says don't connect one box to both but Best Buy two boxes to be sure!.. classic :D

A little mention of their special ground cables too.. now , wait! There will be even more special ones released later that 'improve' performance and of course the effect is cumulative so get saving audiophiles..

I think the rhetoric used is clearly that of a man who knows better selling his soul to pay his mortgage.
 
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Thomas savage

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Let's leave all the scepticism aside and assume it does remove RF noise, let's also leave aside whether this might only be beneficial academically speaking and not have any audible advantage..,

What I want to know is are these claimed attributes of removing noise beyond science in terms of measuring the effectiveness of the device? I don't understand why the CAD people would not just prove it does the job at least using objective measurements and then leave it ' up to us' to worry if it's audible...

If they are not beyond science ( I have a strong feeling they are not) how would we go about measuring the effectiveness of this device?
 

Blumlein 88

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Let's leave all the scepticism aside and assume it does remove RF noise, let's also leave aside whether this might only be beneficial academically speaking and not have any audible advantage..,

What I want to know is are these claimed attributes of removing noise beyond science in terms of measuring the effectiveness of the device? I don't understand why the CAD people would not just prove it does the job at least using objective measurements and then leave it ' up to us' to worry if it's audible...

If they are not beyond science ( I have a strong feeling they are not) how would we go about measuring the effectiveness of this device?

Well we only need investigate the 700 khz to 10 ghz range to verify their claims. See a problem there? From prior experience I can tell you a piece of aluminum foil taped to cardboard and grounded can make a difference in some of those frequencies. Should I multi-layer that, compress it and call it a constrained layer damped electromagnetic composite field damper and sell it for $2000?

There is one way and only one way we could hear this make a difference. If it changes something below 25 khz. Being generous with 5 khz there. So extremely good complete conventional audio measures will show a difference if it makes one we could hear. Otherwise one can speculate about all sorts of possible maybe near happening effects. All the way to 10 ghz.

So I don't know, poor boy measurement technique use AM and VHF radios around your computer gear. Insert this device and see if something changes. I bet you my cardboard clad in aluminum will do more. Not fully conclusive, but a chance. Option #2 get a fairly good software defined radio and you can do much more conclusive tests. None of these will link it to audio frequencies necessarily just test if this gizmo does anything in the upper bands there.

Everything about this screams bull shite. If the guy is a competent EE he claims he is merely deciding to get paid for making a goofy gizmo. Or heck try his award winning USB cables and see if they work. By proxy if they make for better sound you can think he might be truthful about this other gizmo. Life is too short friend.

Finally, even if this somehow works, it is highly, highly unlikely the material in the box is something worth forking over $2k for.
 

fas42

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If they are not beyond science ( I have a strong feeling they are not) how would we go about measuring the effectiveness of this device?
This type of tweak is perfectly suited for doing AB testing on - trivially easy to have in circuit, and removed - so should be easy to verify its effectiveness, for a particular listener.
 
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fas42

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These guys have found another solution to what should be an inaudible problem in competently designed gear, Franks home theater in a box where he can hear these things (high noise and hiss and what not) does not make them problems in competently designed systems.
Tom, again note that I'm not talking static, unchanging noise - this is interference modulating the signal, a dynamic process - when there is no signal there will be no audible degradation, or noise, heard over the speaker.
 

Purité Audio

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It's bullshit, the DAC looks nothing special either NOS , audiophile fodder.
Keith
 

Ken Newton

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What I want to know is are these claimed attributes of removing noise beyond science in terms of measuring the effectiveness of the device? I don't understand why the CAD people would not just prove it does the job at least using objective measurements and then leave it ' up to us' to worry if it's audible...

If they are not beyond science ( I have a strong feeling they are not) how would we go about measuring the effectiveness of this device?

All of the talk in that CAD whitepaper about reducing ground noise strongly indicates to me that the device is intended to reduce common-mode noise. Such noise can be difficult to measure with common diagnostic tools. Complicating any measurement, is that there can be different causation mechanisms for common-mode noise. Probably, the easiest such noise to detect is mains ground loop noise, by measuring the noise current through the mains safety ground/protective earth connection wire. Any current through the safety ground wire indicates power mains ground loop type of common mode noise.

Alternatively, if you have access to the innards of a suspect device, and are willing to make a simple temporary modification, you could also measure safety ground noise current by connecting safety ground and signal ground through a low value resistor, say, about 10 ohms. The ground current will then be measurable as a proportional voltage drop accross the resistor. Only try this if you know what you are doing with respect to power mains safety.

There can be other sources of common-mode noise unrelated to power mains safety ground current, such as from RF/EMI radiated field coupling to signal interfaces, and from signal ground return currents modulating the signal ground reference potential. These may be more difficult to detect and measure than is power mains ground loop type noise. Whatever is the source, the most reliable and effective solution to common-noise, which I know, is to utilize balanced impedance signal interfaces.

As for these, so-called, 'ground control' type products, since they are not connected to the power mains, and appear to feature just a single connecting wire, a sensitive current probing of that wire may reveal whether or not they perform any function. I believe that Amir has already performed just such a test with another ground control type product. One problem with using current probes, however, is that they are relatively low frequency measuring devices. Perhaps, it's more than mere coincidence that the CAD product is calimed to be beneficial on very high frequency noise, which isn't easily measured with a current probe.

P.S. As I think about it, an ammeter could also be easily employed. Simply insert it in to the connection device's connection lead.
 
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