Hi Ozzy,
Sorry you couldn't score any samples, we don't have any to provide. You will have no trouble with a return from Music Direct, I guarantee it. These are not junk, however, if you have poured ground planes in all of your equipment in the amplification chain, or you have a fully differential amplifier, without direct reference to true ground, they will not provide you with any benefit. Otherwise what Deebill reported is what you will get.
Bud |
From what I have seen there will be a review in an up coming 6 Moons release. It has both sides of the story too, with someone who found little or no improvement just as involved as someone who found an improvement and liked it. This is the reason for the refund policy as we do not want anyone to feel they have been cheated.
Bud |
Just in case anyone was lurking and has not seen the 6 moons report, here is the link.
http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/groundcontrol/groundcontrol.html
Bud |
It is an extension and significant refinement of the exploration carried out under the title of Electron Pools.
Bud |
I actually have the GC's on my amplifier (an AudioPrizm Debut with new OPT's and power supply mods) on my Sony CD/SACD player and my Planet 10 Fonken boxes with EnABL'd Fostex 127 eN drivers installed. The amplifier GC's provided about half as much back side of the wave information retention as the GC's on the speakers. The CD player GC retained the high frequency information as music, rather than the rather harsh, grainy, unmusical edge to sound that the unit came with. Not proselytizing here (much anyway) but I suspect some folks are wondering about uses in other locations and these have been my results. I do also have them in my transformer, stepped, isolated attenuator preamp, but most folks don't have one of these.
Bud |
I am not a dealer. I am just the idiot with the idea. Music Direct and I think one other (I will check on this) are dealers. I don't even make the parts, though I do design and build high level audio transformers and provide EnABL patterns for free use to DIYer's and also as a source for those who want the benefits but don't want to learn to do the process. The Ground Control is just a spin off of R&D on cables, to obtain as sonically invisible a cable as possible, to allow me to further refine the transformer designs for audio reproduction.
AudioPrisim is an entirely separate entity and the GC's are being marketed and manufactured by them. This is actually the only way they could have been brought to market, as I do not have the contacts in the business they do. They are in fact the people who drove the commercialization of the idea, so without them, there would be no Ground Control.
Bud |
Just to show how far away from the sales end of GC I am, here are the names of the four dealers involved. Acoustic Sounds, Elusive Disc, Galen Carol Audio & Music Direct. I hope posting these is still abiding by the forum guidelines.
Bud |
In many elderly systems, pre WWII, they ran a wire from the neg terminal, on the driver, to the plated metal basket. This is a ground plane for the driver, there is no particular control over the materials affecting the electrostatic moments in the AC signal, but it has to be better than what is available in your wall, out in the yard and down the road to the substation. Not that service should be by passed in any way, but an alternate is advised, at least for the speaker.
I would absolutely NOT connect the speaker ground to the house system ground, under any circumstances. You are almost certain to form a ground loop antenna and many new and unusual sounds might be the result.
If you want to experiment with a loop of wire, use lamp cord, about 2 feet of it. split it into two halves, strip the ends of each piece and twist them together, making a shorted turn of wire. Connect this to your speaker,s black lug. This will not provide you with a carefully controlled set up like Ground Control does, but you should find some quite noticeable differences in performance.
Bud |
Used Ground Control? Already? WOW. Were they from a dissatisfied user?
Bud |
yes.... exactly... we've been giggling over it for some time too. |
Nicely said guys. I appreciate your mention of the cables you use Ozzy, answers one of those blank spaces of system composition and their effect upon the Ground Control pieces.
Just as pleased as you are that the Ground Controls worked in your system.
Three days ago I loaned my transformer attenuator preamp to a colleague. He provided a SS Nikko Beta II preamp. Typical hashy leading edge to mid and hi frequency, SS sound, from products made back then.
It has two RCA output jack sets, so I plugged a couple of RCA Ground Controls in place and not even the reference ones either, one at a time, just to see what happened. I now have an extremely transparent, very sweet and colorful preamp... and I think I like it more than my stepped attenuator passive device, with my own high zoot transformers in it, just to add insult.
I will mention to Byron how weak, vague and shaky his interview was Jejaudio. Which review were you referencing?
He is one of those Afrikaners from So. Africa, so I suspect I will get a sharp response and a laugh back!
Bud |
Well, that is quite interesting. The one reported failure, with a fully differential system, comes from Stuart Yaniger whose system is detailed here http://syclotron.com/ Stuart is a friend and a died in the wool objectivist, along with being a talented designer and builder and his system showed no changes he could detect.
I cannot personally make any claims as my personal system is all non differential, just report what I have had others tell me. So, thank you for that insight Jejaudio, another data point and a useful one too.
Bud |
Just to stick my two cents in. The RCA pieces seemed to make the biggest difference in ordinary commercial CD players, sub $500 products. Rendering the typical high frequency hash and garble, however slight, back into the musical information it actually is, before the op amps have their way with it. Then I got hold of this solid state Nikko preamp and now the biggest difference made is with the Nikko.
Our Asian markets seem to be much more interested in the RCA than the lugged speaker / amplifier Ground Control and the change in the Nikko's behavior may be a clue as to why this is true. In the other cases I have tried the change was subtle, being primarily in making three dimensional interpretation of the stereo illusion much easier and removing even more of the noise masking, small, wide band wide frequency response information difficult to interpret. This seems to be more of an ease in spaciousness than anything else.
Bud |
Try both Ozzie. It takes about two hours for all of various charge states to get organized. After that time interval, pull the RCA out, listen for 10 minutes and plug it back in. Do thi for both, though you may want to check with Pass Labs to see if their ground design is continuous for both channels. If so, one RCA should do and I would place it on outputs in preference to inputs, but I doubt there is a rational reason behind this choice. Good idea to check out the Cary also, but I would expect it to be a continuous ground for both channels in the analog output buffer stage.
Under no circumstances should you introduce one of these Ground Controls to the digital ground of any digital section of any piece of equipment. Using it on the outputs for the Cary is all you want to consider and only for the analog outputs that drive the preamp.
Bud |
I am quite sure you are correct Ozzie. The GC's are doing no more than retaining the coherence of the information, after it has passed through the various "loads" in your system, just prior to being pulled back through those "loads", to reproduce the back half of the wave forms.
What you are experiencing is just what your system really sounds like, and I for one have to say I am heartily in favor of just how good the designers and engineers have made modern audio. What you have commented on is exactly what I and many others have experienced, thank you for voicing your thoughts.
Bud |
Hi Scott,
I can tell you what I have found in my personal system.
The reference GC provides more resolution than the standard. It does this without adding grain or emphasis, just more information retention across the FR bandwidth. Remember, this is all back half of the wave form coherence.
I find the reference GC's the most useful on my speakers, which are very high resolution items from Plant 10 Hi Fi, and are full range single driver systems aided by EnABL. I found using the reference GC's on the amplifier too closed the lateral sound stage down to just the width of the speakers, so the Audio Prism Debut gets the standard GC set. This provides a wall to wall floor to ceiling performance, from two 4 inch drivers!
The preamp is a borrowed solid state Nikko Beta l, with the typical mid 80's transparency and refinement and hashy high frequencies. A reference and a standard RCA are paired here, since the ground scheme is common to both channels and inputs and outputs. These RCA's are on the spare output jacks. The hashiness is gone and what is left is an extremely elegant, liquid, presentation, that I had no idea could be gotten out of a solid state preamp. The phonostage is still crap however.
My Sony SACD player also has this GC combination and both the Red Book and SACD are strongly benefited, with the usual SACD slight darkness and strain having been eliminated. All of the Red Book tendency to harshness on guttural voices and most high frequency information has been transformed, back into the music values it originally came from. Even the underlying hardness to the sound has been mitigated, though not entirely.
I cannot imagine any scheme where the GC's would interfere with your Naim's grounding scheme. I have heard musings about Naim products requiring Naim cable loads to remain stable. Not sure this is true at all, but the GC has so little capacitance and so little inductance and is on the return side of the signal path in any event, that I have difficulty in imagining any damaging circumstances arising.
My system is distinctly high performance, from what are now upper mid fi components. I am quite happy with the entire package and while I was just as happy before GC came along, I couldn't stand going without. I have tried. Do note that I am the inventor of these things, so I undoubtedly have a personal slant, but I am trying to provide you with what I have found. Ozzie has a number of GC's in has system and may have a few things to say too.
Bud |
Well, not exactly. The reference GC provides quite a bit more detail. It does appear to close down the sound stage width for some systems The net effect being much more information retained, in those areas covered by note and transient specific internal gradient information, and more wide band low amplitude coherence in general.
The standard GC provides the same sort of information retention, but it is not really close to the reference units in retaining as much of the specifics pointed to above. They don't either of them have any sound character at all. Whatever level of resolution your system is currently capable of, these two will help retain the back half of the wave form of that level.
Having said that, most modern day systems have a tremendous amount of information, in the signal side of the electronics. It is the lack of care for the audible properties of grounds that GC is rectifying.
I realize it is hard to grasp how the back half of a wave form might be important. We aren't adding anything to the characteristics you are already familiar with. We are just making what you have far more complete than it is without some form of attention, to the audible portions of a proper ground system.
As for the RCA units, in my tube preamp which is off having some radio frequency oscillations squelched, the reference RCA all by itself was exactly what was needed to free up the sound from a slightly slow, very sweet and clear character. All that occurred was a sense of agility, quite a bit better rendition of instruments within their performance space and greater wholeness to the entire sound. Everything sounded complete, in comparison to no reference RCA. The standard RCA had an effect similar in character, but not in degree of information completeness, and the resulting depth of field illusion. In that case, there was no narrowing of the sound field, with either of the two.
My recommendation is to go slow. If you have a CD player, or outboard DAC with an available input or output, that is contiguous between channels, try the standard RCA there first. If you like the change, try another on your preamp, again with the same stipulations about contiguous grounds.
Before you do either of these I would suggest a pair of the standard GC lugs on your speakers. If you decide to move to the reference units, these standard lugged units can go on the other end of your speaker cable. I don't think you will find you need more than this. However, once in place the changes wrought by the RCA units will be much more effective and available.
Almost all modern audio gear has contiguous grounds, with only some outboard Dac's (Peter Daniels comes to mind) having proper ground planes, with separate channels and power ground separate from signal ground.
Since there is a money back guarantee on these things, I am sure you will know if you are satisfied within the 30 days allowed.
Bud |
Hi Scott.
The single, or pair, RCA question is answered by how the strip grounds are handled in any piece of gear. If they are separated into two channels then two equivalent RCA's are needed. If the channels are not separate then one may do the trick. It may be worth getting one of each grade to experiment with, but only if you have common ground between channels. You may have to peer inside to determine this.
Look on the RCA jacks for input and output. If they all go to the same buss, for both left and right channels, then trying two different RCA's out will be worth while. Doesn't matter where you put them either, input or output, in either case.
These take about 4 hours to work through the charge stabilization period. You will get tonal vividness immeadiately, and it will increase for a period of time, but the sound will start of some what sharp and almost monaural. The GC's will gradually open up to even tonal character and reasonable stage width, only to snap back to the previous state.
With every one of these "breaths" the stage will get wider and deeper and they will stabilize at a very wide, very deep sound stage, with considerable 3 dimensional control within those spaces.
You can take them off for about two days and they will recharge within minutes. Keeping them attached will hold their charge state for quite a bit longer, but not running the system for a month will have them go through a good portion of the breathing again. When taking them to some other system, they will will need about 20 minutes to take control.
Thanks for your comments on the ground system and it's benefit. Most EE's just ask me how I can justify any sort of expense for grounds? Noting that they have never seen any data supporting that need. I just smile, knowing they will continue to provide me with satisfied customers, once their Ground Control issues have been dealt with.
Bud |
Moonguy,
I cannot make recommendations, only tell you what I have ended up with.
The speakers are EnABL/d Fostex Fe 127 eN drivers in Fonken prime boxes, from Planet10 HiFi in Canada. Very high resolution and sonically invisible to begin with, so the extreme specificity that the Reference GC's provide just aided with definition.
These things will resolve everything, right down to -90db, that the motor structure can pass and the entire sound stage illusion is behind the back of the boxes. Without the standard GC on the amp, this combination suffers from a less than wall to wall sound stage. Not closed down in any specific way but the illusion is of a smaller performance space, within a large space, with echos and such hinting at the larger space.
I have found the same dual, standard / reference GC, to be the best use of RCA GC's for preamp, FM radio, CD / SACD player and most recently, an M Audio 610 box that I am starting to use as an interface to a computer based sound source.
In case you missed the notice on the other thread on GC's here on Audiogon, there is a review that deals with the RCA reference GC's on Stereo Times here. http://www.stereotimes.com/
Bud |
For those of you scratching your heads, like I was, here is Ozzies review thread.
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/frr.pl?raccs&1280171827&&&/AudioPrism-Ground-Control-Tweak
Thanks Ozzie, those are kind words indeed.
Bud |
Thank's for your information Moonguy. Yours are the first ML drivers I have heard of having Ground Control being applied to. I will be interested to hear how the GC's woek on the bass units and amplifiers.
Bud |
Hi Scott,
I would be surprised to find that the standard GC's worked well with headphones. I would think that a modified device would work well though. I have them on my phono cartridge and tape deck heads and preamps. These are special designs of course, using far less of the materials than the standard GC's are built with and hand tuned to suit the particular purpose.
Headphone amps might be a place to try, but I would only recommend a standard RCA, perhaps plugged into an RCA to tip and ring plug adapter. I have made tip and ring GC's for an M Audio outboard DAC that worked quite well, but we haven't elected to make a niche product like that available.
I can probably get authorization to build and sell prototypes and special production orders. I haven't yet asked about this format for GC's. I am under some legal constraints about what I can and cannot do with GC's, just to get them to market.
Bud |
I am sure you can use an RCA Y adapter to apply a GC RCA unit. Make it the shortest adapter you can find, one with the least metal and dielectric possible.
For that matter you could also use a Y adapter for the headphones, with a tip and ring male plug attached to a female RCA and plugged into one of the Y's. I have no idea how this would sound, but no harm can come from trying it out. You may need two RCA GC's to make this work, unless the particular headphone has a common ground / return wire, rather than separate ones for each channel.
A tip and ring plug comes in a variety of sizes, 1/4" mono, stereo and balanced stereo, with similar types available for mini-plugs. These are just the official name for the plugs usually found on the end of your headphone cables. |
Tonyjack,
Thanks for the info Tony. I will have a pair of subs coming on line in a few weeks and I will try your tip about the reference GC's on the woofers, with standards up top, which is what I currently have, with two reference's on the amp.
Bud |
Rlxl,
Thank you for your kind words. I am pleased to hear from a large ribbon aficionado. Seems that all that is left is a large horn system. Maybe I can talk Romy into insulting me?
I will of course invite you to look into a pair for your amplifier/s At that point, the RCA's begin to make a noticeable difference, especially when applied to a commercial CD player without an out board DAC (assuming aanyone but me has such a device any more). I have also found them to indespensible for solid state electronics of all kinds and could not be parted with my Nikko Beta 1, so long as it has the RCA GC's attached.
Thanks to everyone for trying them.
Bud |
Hi John,
Under no circumstances should you ever put a Ground Control on a digital ground connected RCA!!!!!!!! Seriously. I am not sure that a fully differential CD etc player would respond any better than did your amplifier to one of the RCA GC's.
We will likely market a set of speaker cables early next year, using the same materials technology the GC's utilize. So, you might save your money for those, they will be absolutely neutral and immune to anything except being draped over a power transformer.
Otherwise, enjoy what you have and perhaps take a peek at Planet10hifi.com. I am sure you have speakers you love, but the EnABL process and Mark Audio drivers, in a cabinet made in Canada, designed in Britain, with workmanship better than the Chinese cabinets and far more musical, might be something to investigate for the future. I can promise significant removal of all of the obstructions to music that speakers force onto us with this combination.
Bud |
Hi John,
I don't mean to scare you. The RCA GC's to a DAC ground appear to affect the cable load and the clock looses sync and the bitstream quits. This to an external DAC with the RCA on that digital ground. Unplugging the RCA solves the problem in about 2 minutes and nothing further occurs. In my Sony SACD etc player, an external PCA onto the spdif with no external DAC connection also shut down the player. I had to turn it off to get the unit to reset. No further problems. So, the GC's don't hurt anything, they just make em mad.
As for the video application, I have been told that plugging an RCA into a video player is helpful. I don't know anything about these devices so I have no cautionary words. Blacker Black and more vivid colors were claimed in both conversations. I am a bit skeptical, but again, I have no experience here.
Bud |
Alleung,
For your first pair, I would recommend that you get the Standard Ground Control and put them on your midrange. Then another pair for your woofer.
With that experience you could try a pair of Reference at your amplifier terminals, keeping in mind that you will have 30 days to evaluate them. You can then move the GC's around to see how they affect your system differently.
Bud |
Hightechredneck
Just as it should. Keep in mind that we are fooling around with a fairly Hi Q manipulation of some very subtle field effects. Anything that you do to increase surface area vs dielectric material in that wire loop will have an effect upon the sound. Heck, just removing the plastic knob from you speaker terminals will have an audible effect. Not all of these will be "beneficial".
Bud |
The "glare" is actually the ground devices charging. It takes a number of charge and discharge cycles before they stabilize, no matter who makes them. The Ground Control devices show a pronounced slant to high frequencies and a distinct narrowing of sound stage at first. Over about a 3 hour period this "uptight" character will collapse into ever more detail and stage width and then squeeze back into the uptight character. Each cycle takes longer than the one before and when finished they are always wide, even and clear. |
Oddeophile,
To completely stabilize, in my system, about 6 to 7 hours, but then my system is already full of the things and has been for three years. 72 hours wouldn't worry me, but I might become impatient....
Vet93,
Yes they will still work. Maybe better maybe worse. There are just too many variables in individual systems for me to say something absolute. I will point out that they have a money back guarantee return policy. Just send them back within 30 days. I would suggest you start with a pair of Standard lug GC's for your speakers. If that provides something you like then slowly investigate additional GC's until you are satisfied.
Bud |
Scottmac62.
Almost all commercial consumer electronic gear has a common ground between input and output and left and right channel. So, in most you can plug the RCA into any input or output, except an SPDIF input or output, anywhere ever.
How long was the RCA on the gear that lost soundstage? You may not be aware that there is a cycling that occurs. Changes from almost mono and elevateds high frequencies to wider soundstage and very flat frequencies, but it goes through a number of these cycles before settling down. Takes 6 to 7 hours of continuous music in my system from unused condition. Some folks report an even longer period of this "breathing". Different for every single piece and type of gear, but the end product for a standard GC is wide and deep sound stage.
Just to make sure we didn't ship the wrong part, look to see if the ground petals on the RCA plug are gold colored.
Bud |
Ozzy, don't do it if your amp is a SS amplifier. All SS amps have a connection to ground and, just like placing too many GC's on a solid state preamp, I am pretty sure this next hot idea is just going to turn one or both channels off. Won't hurt the SS equipment and should clear within a half hour of removal, but I would expect problems for 100% of SS gear.
Bud |
Amazingly! the two devices are compatible and reinforce each other in terms of blackness and separation Hole in one Anti. The two were deliberately designed to work together to uncover and retain the information your system was already capable of providing. Eventually do please try the RCA versions on preamp , DAC or stand alone CD player. Especially an inexpensive stand alone CD player. Now you know for certain that you did not waste your money on your gear! Bud |
Raks,
Take the other RCA and plug it into your preamp input or output jacks if possible. Then, if your CD player has an additional analog output, try it in that position. If you are using an outboard DAC you will be surprised at how the CD player sounds with an RCA GC installed, compared to the DAC.
Bud |
Well, I know you had quite a few in the system, so it is quite possible you had too many. I would let the system play for a number of hours to completely discharge and then try just one location in addition to the speakers again.
You could just as easily be hearing change as a better thing, for more of them or less of them. Very easy to get caught in that loop.
My system hasn't changed notably for quite a while. I do periodically unplug and replug all connections though, so it is entirely possible that is enough interruption and you do actually need a short system down time. We all are exploring this territory, no actual rules other than no more than two per individual component and none hooked to a digital SPDIF RCA plug, or any other unbuffered digital ground connection, ever.
Bud |
That's correct. However, no one has what Ground Control provides, any more. We used to, back when we had poured ground planes underneath our point to point circuitry. But, those were not high resolution systems, nor low distortion systems. They just had this wonderful "ease" and naturalness, due to the completeness of their back wave.
Nowadays, you must have a fully differential high resolution system, to get that natural characteristic. Otherwise, the strip ground PCB format we are forced to, due to the enormous increase in air borne EMF, forces a low resolution to the signal pulled back through the various loads in our audio systems. This Ground Control item is just there to support retention of this back half of every wave form information that is otherwise lost to noise. And since this loss mechanism is true at almost all levels of audio equipment, Ground Control is just about your only help.
You can try it out on the cheap too. Take a 2 foot length of zip cord, split it into two pieces. Then strip about 2 inches of plastic from both of the ends of each piece. Make a loop and twist one end of each individual piece to the other end of that same piece, making two separate shorted loops of wire. You can flatten the loop out if you like.
Then attach the twisted ends of one loop to one speaker, ground / return or black lug connection point. Then do the same on the other side.
If you notice any change, across about a three hour time span, then your system will respond very well to the much more carefully tuned Ground Controls. Don't expect these loops to provide the holy grail, they have about a 90% chance of changing the sound quality. Could be better, could be worse. The Ground Controls are designed to be better.
Bud |
Thanks Ozzie. One more piece of the puzzle in place.
Bud |
Ozzie,
The only light I can shed on the long term need to unplug Ground Controls, is that I do not need to. The catch here is that my system is not on 24/7. In fact, it is rarely on for more than 4 hours at a time, perhaps 3 times a week. So, my GC's are certainly discharging.
I will say that it takes a full CD before I have wall to wall floor to ceiling and 30 miles deep sound staging from the system. After that, the imaging and tonality remain stable for as long as I care to play music. But that CD worth of sound field expansion happens every time I turn the system on. I had been ascribing it to the tube power amp getting up to temperature and all of the electrical fields becoming stable, as that has always been the case with this Audio Prism Debut amp I have. Perhaps the GC's are also contributing and I just don't notice a difference. It has been a number of years since I mounted these GC's, so my memory for such trivia must be considered suspect indeed.
Bud |
Yes, you can obtain a "Standard" Banana plug. My personal recommendation is the locking style from Radio Shack. You need to place a special order for them as we do not ordinarily provide this. You can contact me through Audiogon directly or google AP Labs (AudioPrism) and email Byron.
Bud |
