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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

audio_tony

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They are not though. They are a single wire going into some material. No circuit is completed. This is why they call them "grounding" devices. They only connect to ground even though the connector has both signal connections (for mechanical compatibility).
A typical cat 5/5E/6 cable carries 4x signal connections and 4x PoE connections.

It would be interesting to know what this Chord device with these - and does it even "filter" the PoE connections?

Note, there is no ground here.

1659777555962.png
 

CapMan

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GroundARAY benefits from five separate noise-reduction systems, all working across different HF noise ranges and operating in parallel to convert undesirable HF electrical noise into heat.

The advanced technologies provide a very low-impedance, high-bandwidth route for HF noise to pass into, effectively ‘pulling’ noise from the signal ground of the host equipment.”


This nonsense from the country that gave the world Newton, Hawking, Flemming, Lovelace, Darwin , Turing …. I am so ashamed !
 

CapMan

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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 !
 

CapMan

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They havew been selling a range of cable products for many years. They may even be older than Chord Electronics.
Chord and Naim grew up together in Salisbury (near Stonehenge )

From the Chord website

“The Chord Company was formed in 1984. It all started over dinner one night in Salisbury, when a group of visiting Naim Audio USA retailers asked Naim Audio UK for a good-quality DIN-to-RCA interconnect. At the table, was one Sally Gibb, then married to a Naim Audio executive, who made the (historic) suggestion that she make the cables and start a business.”
 

Katji

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This nonsense from the country that gave the world Newton, Hawking, Flemming, Lovelace, Darwin , Turing …. I am so ashamed !
Shame is appropriate for what they [the "Establishment"] did to Alan Turing. [ref. tv series "Icons".] ..."Cancel culture" not something new.
 

DSJR

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Chord and Naim grew up together in Salisbury (near Stonehenge )

From the Chord website

“The Chord Company was formed in 1984. It all started over dinner one night in Salisbury, when a group of visiting Naim Audio USA retailers asked Naim Audio UK for a good-quality DIN-to-RCA interconnect. At the table, was one Sally Gibb, then married to a Naim Audio executive, who made the (historic) suggestion that she make the cables and start a business.”
They must be doing well these days with all the management people they seem to have...
 

sergeauckland

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They must be doing well these days with all the management people they seem to have...
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.
 

Gee2

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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.
 

Ken Tajalli

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I wonder how management in these snake-oil companies manage to sleep at night.
Very well, with a smile on their face on their luxury beds and expensive house.
Do they think it's clever to con the gullible?
Clever? No - but it makes the world go round!
I wonder what motivates them. Greed?
Are you serious?

You know, I can swear my car drives better with a full tank of fuel and specially after a good car wash! :cool:
 

sergeauckland

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Very well, with a smile on their face on their luxury beds and expensive house.

Clever? No - but it makes the world go round!

Are you serious?

You know, I can swear my car drives better with a full tank of fuel and specially after a good car wash! :cool:
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.
 

Ken Tajalli

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They must be seriously flawed human beings.
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!
 

Katji

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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!
Well, I was going to make a point about that - in one of the Chord review threads, I think, or maybe a Danny review thread - where there was the usual thread of people defending or rationalising, like on the basis of "respect the hustle."

Well, it's a cliche example, but I have no problem with drug dealers or sex workers and so on, I respect the hustle - just as long as they provide what they are supposed to, no bullshit.
 

CapMan

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I feel I am amongst friends and can now share a particularly sad story before I knew better ….

Some years back I had an AV installer put up my new TV and surround speakers .

I bought some Chord Sarsen speaker cable - mostly because it was thin and could be run alongside the carpet grippers.

When the work was finished I was horrified to find that the installer hadn’t followed the direction arrows on the cable (this sounds ridiculous now even as I type it).

I took issue with the installer who (unsurprisingly) looked baffled at my rantings.

I even wrote to Chord to get some reassurance that this wasn’t going to screw everything up.

I realise now that all of this sounds completely MAD , but this is the paranoia that these snake oil companies create and which the HiFi press exacerbate amongst uniformed audio-idiots like I was - neurotic about ever little detail - even if it doesn’t actually matter!

Please don’t judge me - I am over it and have moved away from the dark side :)
 

BDWoody

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I took issue with the installer who (unsurprisingly) looked baffled at my rantings.

Well, take some solace in the fact that the installer has likely told that story many times, thereby increasing the amount of laughter in the world. ;)
 

Ken Tajalli

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Well, I was going to make a point about that - in one of the Chord review threads, I think, or maybe a Danny review thread - where there was the usual thread of people defending or rationalising, like on the basis of "respect the hustle."
Well, it's a cliche example, but I have no problem with drug dealers or sex workers and so on, I respect the hustle - just as long as they provide what they are supposed to, no bullshit.
Err . . . you are aware that this item is not built nor in anyway related to Chord Electronics, the makers of controversial DACs that repeatedly get a bashing, mainly on ASR, Do you??
Chord Electronic DACs maybe controversial, but none has measured poorly, whether it was done by Amir or anyone else, indeed they all have measured excellent! Sound excellent too.
The only bashings they get are related to their cost, and for some of the designer's technical claims.
I am yet to see anything negative about the devices themselves, save for their looks, they are ugly! but practical .
BTW, I am all for sex workers, decent, hard-working honest people, I will not have you say anything bad about them. :mad:
 
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