Chord GroundARAY Review (Noise Filter?)

[gumblag]

Yes, completely serious. I spent much of my career in sales, but then we were engineers selling to engineers who knew exactly what they needed, and why, so no bullshit was possible. The idea of selling stuff I know is useless, just doesn't compute in my mind, so I genuinely don't understand what motivates those that can and do.

They must be seriously flawed human beings.

S.

I remember Steve Jobs' explanation for the bankruptcy of Xerox. You'll find it on YT. The short answer: Marketeers took over the company from the technicians and engineers, induced to the lack of innovative improvement of the existing products and innovative creativity to make new and better ones.

 

[Digby]

This category falls in new tweak one called "grounding." All of them work as I explained. They have a single connection to the chassis and supposedly "drain" noise through it. While the one I have tested has not been opened, others have. Here is the Entreq one I tested:

You neglected to mention in your review that it also serves to align one's chakras.

 

[Digby]

Chord Electronics, The Pump House, Farleigh Bridge, Maidstone ME16 9NB, UK
Chord Company, House 21-24 Mills Way, Salisbury SP4 7RX, UK
Well...

Well, what? They are both in the UK and....what?

 

[composer]

Just a note from the lurking sideline. Seeing this review https://homemedialimited.co.uk/the-chord-company-groundaray-review-by-chris-burton/ after an investment of about £22,000 (they used a HiFi Rose RS150 music streamer, Gold Note P-1000 preamp and PA-1175 power amplifier, partnered with KEF Reference 1’s. Chord Co. Signature Reference XLR and speaker cables were used throughout the system) one still hasn't reached audio nirvana as the addition of a GroundARAY resulted in "the feeling of a veil being removed from in front of the speakers". I wonder how the companies of the several components used in this review feel about this test as this somehow questions their products.

I laughed a lot at this quote of the article:

The Chord Company aren’t in the business of producing products for the sake of it.

Such an involuntary irony may rise sometimes

 

[AdamG]

I laughed a lot at this quote of the article:

The Chord Company aren’t in the business of producing products for the sake of it.

Such an involuntary irony may rise sometimes

Nope, they only make products that will net them sh_t tons of profit. Meaning little cost at outrageous prices for essentially nothing more than a story and pretty packaging. Hurry now, limited supplies while they last!

 

[rollmottle]

I laughed a lot at this quote of the article:

The Chord Company aren’t in the business of producing products for the sake of it.

Such an involuntary irony may rise sometimes

here's another laugher:

"Although we can’t necessarily hear the noise through the system, you are likely to hear the difference when the noise has been reduced. "

 

[Azathoth]

I've seen plugs attached to what looked like large fuses, only the metal caps were gold in color. It plugs into any empty wall outlet or power strip and it supposedly treats electrical noise and cleans the audio. This was sold 10 years ago in a local audio shop. Fast forward 10 years and hey this is pretty much the same thing, a device that plugs into an unoccupied outlet and 'does' something to the system. The placebo effect is real and strong.

 

[audio_tony]

Chord Electronics, The Pump House, Farleigh Bridge, Maidstone ME16 9NB, UK
Chord Company, House 21-24 Mills Way, Salisbury SP4 7RX, UK
Well...

Just to assist those who seem to be having issues differentiating between the two similarly named companies, here's a list of directors. This information is in the public domain, so it is not violating the rights of any individual. You will note there is no connection between the two companies.​

Chord Company:

GIBB, Alan Randolph​

Correspondence address: Chord Company House, 21 - 24 Boscombe Down Business Park Mills Way, Amesbury, Salisbury, England, SP4 7RX
Role ACTIVEDirectorDate of birthSeptember 1957Appointed on1 September 2006
NationalityBritishCountry of residenceUnited KingdomOccupationDirector

MAXWELL, Douglas​

Correspondence addressChord Company House, 21 - 24 Boscombe Down Business Park Mills Way, Amesbury, Salisbury, SP4 7RX
Role ACTIVEDirectorDate of birthJanuary 1982Appointed on24 June 2019
NationalityBritishCountry of residenceEnglandOccupationCompany Director

SENIOR, Richard Phillip​

Correspondence addressChord Company House, 21 - 24 Boscombe Down Business Park Mills Way, Amesbury, Salisbury, SP4 7RX
Role ACTIVEDirectorDate of birthOctober 1981Appointed on24 June 2019
NationalityBritishCountry of residenceEnglandOccupationCompany Director


Chord Electronics

NALEPA, Monika​

Correspondence addressThe Pumphouse, Farleigh Bridge Farleigh Lane, East Farleigh, Kent, ME16 9NB
Role ACTIVESecretaryAppointed on1 December 2017

BARTLETT, Matthew David​

Correspondence addressThe Pumphouse, Farleigh Bridge Farleigh Lane, East Farleigh, Kent, ME16 9NB
Role ACTIVEDirectorDate of birthFebruary 1975Appointed on1 March 2015
NationalityBritishCountry of residenceEnglandOccupationProduction Manager

FRANKS, John Edward​

Correspondence addressOakleigh 3 Bower Mount Road, Maidstone, Kent, ME16 8AX
Role ACTIVEDirectorDate of birthMarch 1955
NationalityBritishCountry of residenceEnglandOccupationSales Director/Director Of Sales & Mark

PRATT, Colin​

Correspondence addressThe Pumphouse, Farleigh Bridge Farleigh Lane, East Farleigh, Kent, ME16 9NB
Role ACTIVEDirectorDate of birthJanuary 1973Appointed on1 September 2017
NationalityBritishCountry of residenceEnglandOccupationSales Director

Companies house (UK) links: (site might be restricted to UK viewers)

Chord Electronics Limited

The Chord Company Limited

 

[KSTR]

If a manufacturer tells me an amp is class D, I don't need to open it to confirm. Watch the video that was posted by them.

This category falls in new tweak one called "grounding." All of them work as I explained. They have a single connection to the chassis and supposedly "drain" noise through it. While the one I have tested has not been opened, others have. Here is the Entreq one I tested:

What you are showing is something completely different.
The Entreq has no shielding case around it and therefore the GND embedded in the turmaline can generate an electric field on the turmaline (vs. "world"). Turmaline is piezo-active, which means it changes the dimension of the lattice crystals when subject to electric field. The friction generated from the crystals massaging each other creates the dissipation. That's what these turmaline absorbtion theories say how it works (plausible to me).

Now if these Chord plugs have a shield connected to the same potential than the "drain wire", there is no electric field imposed on the turmaline. That would be completely idiotic. Of course it could be that Chord is actually doing things that silly (it's a gimmick product after all, I fully agree) but unless opened I wouldn't be so sure.

Point is that other devices exist which actually are constructed in the way I described (there is/was a vivid "turmaline denoiser" scene in some german forums).

 

[amirm]

What you are showing is something completely different.

They are not. They are both grounding products. Not electrical filters. This is just the miniature version of the other. Why do you think it is called Ground Aray? This is the product description:

Hand built in UK. The Chord Company GroundARAY is designed to efficiently reduce a wide range of high-frequency noise from the signal earth of audio and video products. It is connected in parallel to the signal earth via unused sockets on your equipment.

See the bolded section? It is only connected to signal earth. It also clearly says so in their video at 3:48:

 

[KSTR]

They are not. They are both grounding products. Not electrical filters. This is just the miniature version of the other. Why do you think it is called Ground Aray? This is the product description:

Hand built in UK. The Chord Company GroundARAY is designed to efficiently reduce a wide range of high-frequency noise from the signal earth of audio and video products. It is connected in parallel to the signal earth via unused sockets on your equipment.

See the bolded section? It is only connected to signal earth. It also clearly says so in their video at 3:48:

OK.
They are both grounding products, but different ones in construction, one (Chord) appears to be shielded from the world, the other isn't. The shielded Chord construction style at least guarantees it has zero effect, Faraday cage at work. ;-)

 

[antcollinet]

Is this the same argument people use to buy a liniare power supply. Must the USB connector of the DAC not solving this problem?

No, it isn't. Because a linear power supply does not solve ground loop problems. And even if it produces "cleaner" power, it doesn't matter - because the device it is powering (if well designed) already filters the noise from the power supply, such that it doesn't impact the sound.

 

[antcollinet]

From the other review:
“To be honest guys and gals, I don't worry about "noise" in the USB system itself when we add a good modern DACs in typical sound systems. Today's good DACs already output signals with low noise floor, great dynamic range, very low distortion and some already implement galvanic isolation. The only times I've run into issues are when doing measurements with both my DAC and ADC plugged in to the same computer which can result in ground loops (as discussed with the NobSound USB1 isolator article). In principle, this Topping box should be able to remove such issues while operating at USB2.0 / UAC2 speed”
And yes, I understanding grond loops, and no, I never had a grond loop isseue with a USB connection to my DAC’s . If there is no problem why fixed it?

If you "understand ground loops" why do you think it is only relevant to the dac. I typical ground loop will go from supply through PC, through DAC through amp (whether separate or in speaker), and back to supply. The ground loop noise has no effect on the USB data, but hits analogue signals further down the chain. Even with a ground loop, problems will be there or not depending on how the mains supplies and interconnect (including analogue audio connections) are positioned and connected (particularly length - which is why powered speakers can be more problematic), and whether there is an interfering H field to couple into the loop.

For example another way of eliminating the noise from ground loops is to use balanced interconnect. This doesn't break the ground loop, but eliminates the influence of the ground loop noise on the audio signals.

 

[AudioSceptic]

It is the fault of early electronic engineers to have called it Earthed or Grounded !
So, somebody is gonna fill a box, full of earth! (sand, stonechips etc.) and run some copper through it, to make a proper earth box!
What's your problem?

It's called that for a very good reason <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_(electricity)>

 

[AudioSceptic]

Speaker cables came later and I sold plenty of it at the time. A lesson I learned (re-learned) far too late - forget foo materials, silver plating and PTFE insulation (which I gather is needed not for sound quality, but to make the cabe itself?), it's the GAUGE which is most important really - this latter fact was screaming at me when I used the Linn k10 speaker cable (free with the one-box 'Classik' music system) which is basically a generic good quality fig-8 type (2.5mm?) and which 'sounded' great in a more expensive system when I tried it out 'for a giggle.' Sorry, twenty years away from it as a full time job tends to re-focus on what's important apart from making money.....

And didn't the original Naim speaker cable NACA4 become Linn K20? Reasonable price, 4 mm2 (AWG 11) I think.

 

[AudioSceptic]

I wonder how management in these snake-oil companies manage to sleep at night. They must know they're selling useless rubbish, or do they really actually believe their own hype?

Do they think it's clever to con the gullible? I wonder what motivates them. Greed?

S.

I always wonder, which is worse: that someone knowingly sells rubbish, or that they honestly believe it works?

 

[AudioSceptic]

C'mon! don't be so harsh - we have Politicians, Religious leaders and drug dealers (you have head of them ... yes?)
What Chord company is pushing is harmless mostly, just hurts your wallet! Adds a little to global warming . . .
As I said, it makes the world go round - re-distribution of wealth!

That's just the tip of the iceberg. What about all the purveyors of paranormal woo, dubious food supplements, homeopathy, spiritualism, etc?

 

[DSJR]

And didn't the original Naim speaker cable NACA4 become Linn K20? Reasonable price, 4 mm2 (AWG 11) I think.

The A4 and K20 used similar gauge copper strands (I'd suggest 2.5mm 42 strand? rather than 4mm) and the Cable Talk 3.1 and 4.1 (different insulation) cables were made similarly, as was a dumbbell cable by another UK supplier (I forget which). Made I believe by BICC, the insulation was a different material for each one, the black Naim A4 reacting with and tarnishing the copper badly after a few years use.

Chord Co introduced 'Flatline' cable which we later discovered was Nordost made. It 'sounded' lean and brighter lit, which I now put down to the pathetic gauge of the 'tapes' (can't have been more than a 1.5mm cross section if the 'strands' were made into a circular cable). It fitted nicely under a carpet though. Once Nordost stopped supplying them, the thin gauge Rumour came along and it's as I mentioned in an earlier post, bot this and the thicker Odyssey gaining round sticky to the touch 'jackets' justifying a price increase They've moved upwards since then into the 'foo' market and I think that's sad, but then, the mid market they serviced so well with interconnects and so on has contracted here as the used market has taken up the slack.

 

[AudioSceptic]

I think @amirm is measuring wrong - this is the result of some proper testing on the Naim forum …(tongue firmly in cheek)

“I’ve been using a 5pin Chord ground array into my 552 since this morning. I do have others but I am restricting use until I get a clear picture of what’s going on.

My initial reaction is a bit mixed. There’s definitely a difference but I haven’t been able to clearly understand if it’s actually better. With the array there seems to be an increase in high level information and micro dynamics and an increased tautness to the sound. However, this comes at a cost as it seems to rob the body of the music of some weight and richness. This benefits some tracks but not all. At least it’s dead easy to put in and remove.

I’ll update my findings after I’ve spent more time experimenting.”

The Ground Array is what you buy when you have top of the range Naim boxes and nothing left to spend money on !

This is a strange idea from the outer fringes, but I've heard that you can buy something called "music" in various formats. Are there devices for playing this "music" on?

 

[sergeauckland]

I always wonder, which is worse: that someone knowingly sells rubbish, or that they honestly believe it works?

A rogue or a fool?

A very good question.

I have more sympathy for the fool, as they can be educated, there's no excuse for the rogue.

S.