Entreq ground conditioners - what's the theory?

Davehrab got it right. In order to pass safety requirements the equipment must be grounded. The problem is that if the electronics are grounded, ground loops can result, which usually results in a buzz of some sort.

So if the designer is using good engineering practice, the circuit grounds of the equipment will not be the same as the chassis ground. However the circuit ground does benefit from the shielding of the chassis; in order for the chassis to not introduce noise, the circuit ground is set up so that it floats at the same potential as the chassis ground, even though they are isolated.

I have found that this is not a common practice in high end audio! But for equipment that is grounded properly by design, such grounding devices like the one this thread is about will have no effect on the gear at all.

Sorry to pop any bubbles, but if you are using such devices to good effect, it simply means that the manufacturer(s) of your electronics have not done their grounding homework. It quite literally is that simple.

Agear, having had some experience with some of the manufacturers on your list, I have to agree. Others on that list did their homework.

FWIW, very few if any manufacturers from the 1950s got their grounding right. I work on Ampex stuff all the time; I hate to say it but their approach was really flawed. As you look at equipment that has been made over the decades, its pretty obvious that grounding was something some manufacturers understood and others didn't. That holds true in spades today.

That is why some people get benefit from exotic grounding schemes and others do not. So why harp on this? Simply because if manufacturers could get there ducks in a row, their equipment would perform better without a need for an exotic ground.

Power cords can have plenty of measurable effects and I have talked about the physics about why on other threads. Similarly, power conditioners can really help too (although most high end audio power conditioners are so much junk- the best one ever made was made by Elgar, model 3006, which embarrasses anything offered to audiophiles). It can put out a distortion-free 60Hz sine wave at full load of 28 Amps.

You can sort out easily enough if the equipment is properly grounded by using a DVM. Connect one lead to the chassis and one to the center pin of the IEC connection or power cord. You should measure a short.

Then connect to the ground of the input and output connectors. You should not see a short- but some nominal resistance. I've seen a lot of power amps where input ground and chassis ground are the same thing. Such a unit will be sensitive to the earth ground. I've seen others where the chassis seems to float relative to the inputs. Again, there will be troubles with ground.

It does not matter who made it. What matters is whether its set up right.

I also think Alan has figured out a rather extreme method for manipulating Ohm's Law

Ohm's Law is immutable and cannot be 'manipulated'. This may be a poor choice of words but in the context it did not appear so. Ohm's Law is the foundation principle of electricity and electronics. Were it possible to 'manipulate' it, a new branch of physics would be created!

Also just a FWIW: So far all the schemes in audio that have made the claim of using 'quantum physics' have all been scams. Again, perhaps a poor choice of words to explain something else. But if a manufacturer starts using 'quantum physics' to explain to you how their equipment works, that would be a good time to turn around and run as hard as you can.

From what the UK rep has to say, grounding happens in two planes, the component itself, and the signal itself, and it is the latter where emi/rf is likely a severe limiting factor.

This statement is what I was getting at regarding the chassis as opposed to the circuit ground. However I should point out that if the two are grounded to different circuits, for example the chassis is at AC wiring ground and the circuit is at the ground potential of the stake in the garden, you could possibly damage the equipment if the two potentials are somehow significantly different. If so, the damage may result in loss of electrical/fire protection.

Most houses are already at the same ground potential as a stake in the yard (both our shop and my house are like this- you can't measure any voltage or RF voltage differences between the two, likely because the buildings' foundations are in very intimate contact with the earth). If you really are concerned about this, IMO you are better off having an electrician run a fused wire to the ground stake from the ground of your breaker box.

Now RF is still can be a problem, but IMO you are better off grounding the things that can re-radiate RF; ungrounded gutters (I have seen corrosion on the joints of gutters act as primitive diodes, causing the gutters to detect the radio signal and vibrate from its energy), metal screens in stucco, perhaps metal window screens near the audio equipment. Harry Pearson used to have terrible problems with RF at his home many years ago, until it was discovered that there was a metal screen in the ceiling of the structure. Once grounded the RF issues were gone.

Ivan, there is one device known as the 'Intelligent Chip' that was most definitely a scam. Not sure if that is the same one that you mention above. Neither the Bybee or the Marigo dots rely on any quantum effects, and if their advertising says so, I would take it with a grain of salt.

You are right that there is always electrical noise. The question is really how much of an effect you are able to have on it by correct grounding. It turns out that you can indeed have an effect. However, this is why I mention correct ground schemes in your actual amp/preamp/whatever as this is where the grounding will yield the greatest benefit.

If the equipment uses a poor grounding scheme, it will be prone to all sorts of external effects such as RF, ground loops and of course alternative grounding. What I am getting at here is sort of like snuffing out a match as opposed to trying to put out a forest fire. If you can snuff the match and not burn the forest, you will be a lot better off. The same applies to correct grounding in audio equipment, but what strikes me as odd is that many 'high end' audio designers don't seem to be grounded (pardon the expression) in the principles for effective grounding.

Yes, I remember having a good laugh over that one.