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Chord GroundARAY Review (Noise Filter?)

Rate this audio product:

  • 1. Waste of money (piggy bank panther)

    Votes: 274 96.8%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 1 0.4%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther

    Votes: 2 0.7%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 6 2.1%

  • Total voters
    283

mmuetst

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I must say, they look high-end with there metal sleeve, and The price above $700,- convinces audiophiles that this must be a good product :facepalm:.
 
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AudioSceptic

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The Chord Company is NOT Chord Electronics in any shape or form. The Chord Company started out making interconnects for Naim amplifiers back in the early 80's which were all DIN socketed. The range expanded into the lower reaches of the foo-end of the market and they've got into these potentially lucrative products too.
Correct. They were based in Salisbury (now moved about 20m north to Amesbury) where I used to live. I was a good friend of Julian Vereker RIP, the founder of NAIM Audio and through him I met the Chord guys. They started manufacturing very high quality cables for a high but not silly price. I own many of their cables and still use them.

Seeing these products, it looks like they entered to the audiophool market. Such a shame.
The Sarum Tuned ARAY range is well into the insane part of that market <https://hifiplus.com/articles/chord-company-sarum-tuned-aray-cable-system/>.
Price: £1,600 (2x1m, RCA interconnects), £1,650/1.5m pair (speaker cable) + £550 per additional mono metre, £1,100/1m (power cord)
and that was in 2014.
 

JDS

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This is a listening test, comparison and measurements of the Chord GroundARAY "noise reduction" device. I think it comes in a pack and costs US $795 for the set. Member kindly sent me the Ethernet one:
View attachment 222398
This is the picture of the full set:

chordco-GA-7-row-with-AEX-award-1080px.jpg


You are supposed to plug in the unit into the unused ports on your gear. And the more, the better.

NOTE: this is from CHORD Company, NOT Chord Electronics which makes the various DACs I have tested.

Chord GroundArray Listening Tests

My standard workstation where I perform my testing is naturally connected to our home network where a lot of the data files come and go during the testing over a TP Link switch. It has 8 ports with a few unused ones so I plugged the GroundArray into one of them. Inserting the device is easy. Getting it out is not because the tab is then hidden enough that you can't push to unlock it. I had to use a screw driver to push the lock in to remove it.

I played my reference tracks using RME ADI-2 Pro as I inserted and then removed the GroundARAY. There was no difference whatsoever to my ears. To avoid the accusation that I don't want to hear a difference, I then performed a null test using member @pkane's DeltaWave program. Here, RME ADI-Pro is capturing its own output for analysis. I made two captures: one with and one without GroundARAY. Here is the spectrum of null (difference) result:

View attachment 222400

And here is the file itself if you want to listen: https://www.dropbox.com/s/mkm7zx4lz3zi6xy/Missing Film Chord GroundAray Difference File.wav?dl=0

Even with my sensitive IEMs and pushing the RME headphone output to absolute max, all I hear is silence.

Chord GroundARAY Measurements
I happened to still have the Chord DAVE DAC on hand so I used it for measurements (different companies -- same name). The configuration is the same as listening tests with the TP-Link switch being used to capture and save measurement files (and music I listen to while testing). Here is the CHORD DAVE dashboard measurement as is with output calibrated to 4 volts:
View attachment 222401

Per my DAC review note, one channel is less stable so I had to take care and graph that screen shot while it was on its best behavior. I then plugged in the GroundARAY to TP-Link switch. Here is the difference or lack thereof:
View attachment 222403

Nothing is out of placed or changed a hair for the entire audible band and then some (22.4 kHz bandwidth). SINAD is dominated by noise so if noise had gone down, it would improve but it did not. Let's measure dynamic range directly to assure ourselves of that:
View attachment 222404

Other than tiny run to run variation, there is no difference whatsoever.

For people complaining that we only use a single 1 kHz tone for measurements, here is our 32 tone test running at 192 kHz sampling (so very wide bandwidth):
View attachment 222405

The two sets of measurements land right on top of each other with no difference at all.

We could run a lot more tests but results will be the same.

Conclusions
Even if the Ethernet GroundAray performed some kind of noise filtering, in which case company should so show that, the concept of it making a difference to a DAC output connected to said computer is incredibly far fetched. The PC is already much noisier than the Ethernet link yet we get superb sound out of it because DACs are designed to be immune to such noise. Furthermore, an Ethernet switch has independent ports. Filtering one is not going to do anything to the port next to it.

Audiophiles though with faulty testing methodology put aside all of that and say, "but I heard it." As I always say, I can put dirt in a box with a wire and you connect it to your audio system and you would report improvements. Indeed, such "grounding" devices exist and I have tested one that costs thousands of dollars! In this review, I have done my own listening tests with negative results. And used computer matching to show that there is no difference in the waveform to beyond the accuracy of the original audio files.

There is no way I can recommend the CHORD company GroundAray.

-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
Amir:

Another bit of expensive snake oil thoroughly debunked – thanks.

Your objective, data-driven reviews have been a huge advance over the kind of stuff we usually see from the “slicks.” Your wide-ranging evaluations have pretty conclusively shown a few broad generalizations about our hobby:
  • Cables, fancy power supplies and filters and the like: almost always, at best, a waste of money.
  • DACs and headphone amps: largely perfected, all the way down to very affordable price points. A few providers continue to slowly eke out improvements, but an extra dB or two of SINAID or a small reduction in measured jitter will be far below audibility.
  • Other 2-channel electronics (power amps, phone preamps, etc.): a few challenges remain, mostly about bringing SOTA performance to reasonable price points, but otherwise they are a largely solved problem.
  • Loudspeakers: they are approaching the status of a solved problem, with powered units from a variety of manufacturers testing incredibly well. But tastes and rooms differ, and prices for the best stuff (and speakers with real bass) remain high.
  • Headphones: all over the map, hard to correlate measurements with listening experience.
  • Home theater electronics: a complete mess. Almost everything you have tested sucks, especially below stratospheric price points.

So it is now easy to put together a reasonably priced 2-channel system that approaches state of the art for minimal investment, but good luck doing the same in home theater.

Thus I’d like to suggest that this landscape informs how to focus your valuable efforts going forward. I think you could be most effective if you could concentrate on (a) headphone tests (and making tests more predictive of user experience) and, most important, (b) a quest for even one decent, reasonably priced HT receiver or processor. (I am stuck with a NAD T758 which I hate for multiple reasons even leaving aside the crap performance you measured, but what should I replace it with?)

Thanks for a great website!
 

Garrincha

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In contrast to this almost namesake, Rob Watts´ Chord appears almost like a serious company!
 

olderman

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This is a listening test, comparison and measurements of the Chord GroundARAY "noise reduction" device. I think it comes in a pack and costs US $795 for the set. Member kindly sent me the Ethernet one:
View attachment 222398
This is the picture of the full set:

chordco-GA-7-row-with-AEX-award-1080px.jpg


You are supposed to plug in the unit into the unused ports on your gear. And the more, the better.

NOTE: this is from CHORD Company, NOT Chord Electronics which makes the various DACs I have tested.

Chord GroundArray Listening Tests

My standard workstation where I perform my testing is naturally connected to our home network where a lot of the data files come and go during the testing over a TP Link switch. It has 8 ports with a few unused ones so I plugged the GroundArray into one of them. Inserting the device is easy. Getting it out is not because the tab is then hidden enough that you can't push to unlock it. I had to use a screw driver to push the lock in to remove it.

I played my reference tracks using RME ADI-2 Pro as I inserted and then removed the GroundARAY. There was no difference whatsoever to my ears. To avoid the accusation that I don't want to hear a difference, I then performed a null test using member @pkane's DeltaWave program. Here, RME ADI-Pro is capturing its own output for analysis. I made two captures: one with and one without GroundARAY. Here is the spectrum of null (difference) result:

View attachment 222400

And here is the file itself if you want to listen: https://www.dropbox.com/s/mkm7zx4lz3zi6xy/Missing Film Chord GroundAray Difference File.wav?dl=0

Even with my sensitive IEMs and pushing the RME headphone output to absolute max, all I hear is silence.

Chord GroundARAY Measurements
I happened to still have the Chord DAVE DAC on hand so I used it for measurements (different companies -- same name). The configuration is the same as listening tests with the TP-Link switch being used to capture and save measurement files (and music I listen to while testing). Here is the CHORD DAVE dashboard measurement as is with output calibrated to 4 volts:
View attachment 222401

Per my DAC review note, one channel is less stable so I had to take care and graph that screen shot while it was on its best behavior. I then plugged in the GroundARAY to TP-Link switch. Here is the difference or lack thereof:
View attachment 222403

Nothing is out of placed or changed a hair for the entire audible band and then some (22.4 kHz bandwidth). SINAD is dominated by noise so if noise had gone down, it would improve but it did not. Let's measure dynamic range directly to assure ourselves of that:
View attachment 222404

Other than tiny run to run variation, there is no difference whatsoever.

For people complaining that we only use a single 1 kHz tone for measurements, here is our 32 tone test running at 192 kHz sampling (so very wide bandwidth):
View attachment 222405

The two sets of measurements land right on top of each other with no difference at all.

We could run a lot more tests but results will be the same.

Conclusions
Even if the Ethernet GroundAray performed some kind of noise filtering, in which case company should so show that, the concept of it making a difference to a DAC output connected to said computer is incredibly far fetched. The PC is already much noisier than the Ethernet link yet we get superb sound out of it because DACs are designed to be immune to such noise. Furthermore, an Ethernet switch has independent ports. Filtering one is not going to do anything to the port next to it.

Audiophiles though with faulty testing methodology put aside all of that and say, "but I heard it." As I always say, I can put dirt in a box with a wire and you connect it to your audio system and you would report improvements. Indeed, such "grounding" devices exist and I have tested one that costs thousands of dollars! In this review, I have done my own listening tests with negative results. And used computer matching to show that there is no difference in the waveform to beyond the accuracy of the original audio files.

There is no way I can recommend the CHORD company GroundAray.

-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
Dirt in a box! I love it! (I wonder how the PS Audio Ultimate Outlet will fare when you test it. Better than dirt in a box, I hope.)
 

SKBubba

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So if I understand the measurements correctly, it's transparent? So $800 is a bargain to preserve the source signal? Ok, then.
 

CedarX

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The unused sockets are the key here: you need them and need more! So, disconnect all these cables on the back (they’re useless anyway, no?), replace them with GroundARAY’s, and I guarantee your hifi equipment is going to be much less noisy! :p
 

GDK

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The unused sockets are the key here: you need them and need more! So, disconnect all these cables on the back (they’re useless anyway, no?), replace them with GroundARAY’s, and I guarantee your hifi equipment is going to be much less noisy! :p
The first one you buy should come with a free AVR…

FC0064C9-CD9D-41E1-9E3C-3DB2E42C09D6.jpeg
 

Katji

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Dirt in a box! I love it! (I wonder how the PS Audio Ultimate Outlet will fare when you test it. Better than dirt in a box, I hope.)
The earth/ground box thing is made in Sweden with special Baltic plywood or something. It has a bunch of folded copper strips and special crystal stuff in it...like that blue stuff for home aquariums iirc.

 
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Axo1989

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The two Dacs I mentioned are portable Dacs that double up as desktop too.
They are also sensitive to this issue.
However, when used for their primary portable role, the issue does not arise. Connect them to a phone and headphones, and there is no problem.
They do not have isolation builtin, because that uses precious battery power.
But sometimes, the problem may not affect the Dac, but the amp that comes after!
HS-01 is a solution to a particular problem.
If you don't get it, then by all means, call it what you like.

Interesting that you raised that. I get hum when driving my Krell amp via RCA from Mojo. I have a desktop DAC that feeds it via XLR so it was just curiosity. But if I wanted to do it again/regularly that Topping item may be a good solution.

I get dry skin too sometimes, depending on the weather.
 

Axo1989

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chordco-GA-7-row-with-AEX-award-1080px.jpg

Kinda look like pieces in a chess set themed on snake oil audio products.

Glad I don't have an AVR. I get trypophobia just looking at (or thinking about) the back of them. Pretty sure this product line is made to capitalise on that. Plastic caps would likely do the trick though (or some other material if aesthetics comes into it).

Edit: and yes great chess set, maybe make the pawn (RCA obviously) a bit shorter.
 
Last edited:

Katji

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^^^Yes there are gold-plated ones, and with little magic logos.
 

Katji

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Kinda look like pieces in a chess set themed on snake oil audio products.
When I saw it in the RSS post, I wondered what sort of buttons it had, I thought maybe they're on the other side.
 

CedarX

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Oh and it says that GroundARAY converts undesirable HF electrical noise into heat. I bet excess inventories at the Chord factory caused the recent heat wave in the UK… Save the planet! Don’t buy!
 
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sq225917

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Russ Andrews won his case by showing that artificially injected rfi, from a signal generator was indeed reduce by the passive components in the Sawyers cable. He failed to show any effect with rfi already on the cable. Ie there was no noise to reduce in the real world, but he showed they 'could' work as claimed with a specific artificial noise.

I should know, it was me who submitted the original complaint.
 
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