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A New Ground -- Benefits of introducing the Synergistic Research Active Ground Block SE

Dedicated ground solutions are not a novel idea but over the past year it seems everyone has been coming out with their version. For a few months I’ve been thinking about introducing one to my system and had considered Entreq, Telos, Nordost and others. Although I have a bunch of Synergistic Research (SR) kit I had dismissed their older basic ground block as too rinky dink -- however when I heard about the new Active Ground Blocks I thought that could be the way to go. The Active Ground blocks are smallish devices with a mains connection and a plethora of outlets for grounding cables to every component. They incorporate a range of the latest SR UEF tweaks
http://www.synergisticresearch.com/isolation/ground-isolation/active-ground-block-se/

While the blocks alone are quite expensive ($2995) you will also need to lay out for connections to all of your components -- ideally the HD links. In my case as I have two distinct zones in my system I needed two ground blocks and 13 links -- quite an outlay

Question is is it worthwhile? Most certainly yes. The impact of implementing a full grounding solution in my system was one of the most profound changes I’ve experienced. It’s not a change that can be described in the usual audiophile terms of dynamics, frequency response, transparency etc. Instead it’s a shift in the wholeness, the verisimilitude, the gestalt of what you are hearing. Probably this is most obvious in a couple of places. Firstly is in background washes of sound (e.g. classic synth backings, or massed strings, or the whoosh that opens "Private Investigations") -- which now take on a scale, texture and clarity that had previously been completely masked. Secondly in vocals where a whole level of shading, nuance, breathwork, and subtly inflections are now audible. This is not simply more "detail" or a "reduction in the noise floor" it’s as if things which you did not know previously existed are suddenly there, as they had been all along

The effect is enhanced the more things you ground -- obviously all active components but even stands (my GPA stands are conductive so I connect a basic ground link to the bare metal inside the stand posts -- the surface metal is varnished and non conductive).

While I obviously can recommend the SR products I imagine any ground solution will bring similar benefits and would strongly suggest that anyone with a high resolution system explore some form of ground solution

ps For those in the now the music to accompany this review is A New Ground

128x128folkfreak
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atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
7,068 posts
 
@folkfreak 

Sorry Ralph -- you're dodging my question. If I accept your argument then installing the grounding box fixes all of the issues that the designers of the original equipment caused by (as you hypothesize) grounding the chassis of some but of kit somewhere along the line

Ok with this fixed why the hell should it then matter that I ground a passive piece of metal and carbon fibre (the stand) -- or is it equally valid that these huge bits of conductive material are picking up god knows what nasties and the ground path is a way of getting this crap out of the system?

Actually I'm not dodging anything. However FWIW I'm not making sense out of the second sentence of your first paragraph here and I'm happy to address it if you can clarify.

Regarding the latter paragraph: FWIW some years back at my house I found it a good idea to ground my equipment stand (Sound Anchors custom stand) as floating it seemed to cause a little hum in the phono. But oddly(? perhaps not) as we improved the grounding scheme in our equipment over the years, for some reason grounding the equipment stand no longer has any effect.  I know I don't have a lot of RFI in my location, so I suspect that grounding a metal stand in a noisy environment is not a bad idea. But all that is needed for that is a bit of wire.

Note also that all depends on the house wiring being correct. In that regard the green wire on the AC outlet is the ground wire... and that's the one that is tied to house ground. Now the neutral (white) wire is also tied to that point, but the neutral carries current while the ground wire does not. So the ground wire will not carry any significant current if the audio equipment is properly grounded. This will prove to be an effective sink for RF noise and the like which is always present in some form.


folkfreak's avatar
folkfreak OP
1,149 posts
 
Thanks thanks very much @davehrab and @atmasphere these explanations really make sense and are very helpful

one final question/observation is regarding turntables. Most turntables and phono amps have a chassis ground that in many systems will be connected (it is in mine as in the case of one of my two cartridges it sounds better that way). Does the existence of this ground path mess up all other grounds that may have been well designed? Or should phono stage designers have a different grounding arrangement (for my AR Ref Phono 2 it's a simple chassis tag, and on my table the ground on my wooden arm is to a tag on the turntable itself)
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atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
7,068 posts
 
@folkfreak

No. The ground of the arm is independent of the audio signal.

In fact what is happening is that the tone arm is a balanced source which in most cases is being operated single-ended. That's why you wind up with that grounding wire which other single-ended sources don't seem to need.

At any rate the ground wire is independent of what is the signal ground in the preamp.
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