Entreq ground conditioners - what's the theory?

In France there are two ways to plug a component.
If no ground pin on the plug you have two possibilities .
To know what is the best way you use a cheap device which mesure electric field to protect you when you make a hole in a wall to go through an electrical line.On a very résolvent system you hear immediately the difference.On one way of connection the component radiate less electromagnetic field and the sound is better.When there is a ground pin you have special female plug (German norm) with no ground pins. The ground contact is around the internal part of the plug.
So you must have female and male compatible plug.
I use a RGC 24 from acoustic revive which works as entreq .

Sorry Agear, this is really not fair. Don't cast aspersions. If you and Miguel want to refute the Entreq claims, do so. I've asked you to do so, twice now with this request. And you still don't. Until you put a counter theory fwd, I'll stick with the Entreq claim. And now I'm signing off from this thread.

[For clarification Cruze FIRST Audio who sold me the Troy said RCA terminations are available if needed for hookup.]

Yes indeed. I asked Miguel directly and he stated it was misinformation. The fact that it came from the Entreq distributor was not helpful. I am sure he is charming and not heavy handed, but nonetheless....

Charles you are very right. Both devices work but serve different niches in audio, and I am glad for both companies that awareness is being raised. There has been further misinformation spread on this site regarding the reason behind their sonic effects, and I think they need to be experienced. Opinions add up to nothing when it comes to music!

Hi Spirit,
I realize you weren`t asking me to answer that question. My point was simply to admit I don`t understand how it functions, only how well it delivers.For clarification Cruze FIRST Audio who sold me the Troy said RCA terminations are available if needed for hookup.
Charles,

Charles, I wasn't actually asking you to explain how Troy grounds at signal plane since it's only attached to the chassis screws, you're too busy getting swept away by it. No, The q was aimed at Agear and Miguel. No sweat.

Hi Spirit,
I believe that you can get the Tripoint grounding wires with optional RCA connections if desired. Spirit, in all candor I can`t explain how the Troy works or all that it may affect,signal,ground,filtering etc. What I can attest to is the "stunning" improvement in sound quality.This thing is something else!
Charles,

Thank you, Charles. No issue with me, just feel compelled to extol the virtues of Entreq and have no reason to dispute the claims of the UK rep. Any grey areas are purely non intentional. As I've said, living in the UK, I'm never going to observe Troy in action, happy to settle on Entreq.
Tbh Agear, since Troy is only attached to components via the chassis screws, it's a little confusing to see how it works at the signal plane. Entreq plugs into rca/xlr/phono sockets so is closer to the signal by far. Maybe you or Miguel could explain how it does. Better than denials of Entreq claims with no follow up.
All in good spirit, just robust discussion. As Charles says, we're all ecstatic with our discovery of the phenomenal benefits of grounding, Entreq or Troy.

Spirit,
You've done a good job of bringing attention to the benefit of addressing grounding an audio system, the more awareness the better for all of us music lovers. I'd hate to see this devolve into a pissing contest between the Tripoint Troy and the Entreq Silver Tellus. You have every reason to be proud of the Entreq given what its done for your system. I've read no negative comments on this product. The Troy although shrouded in some mystery has established a quite phenomenal track record the past 4 or 5 years of very devoted and happy owners. The products don't compete directly with each other both have their demographic niche. Buyers will decide which one suits their needs and objectives best. There's room for both of them in the High End market place and that's Ideal as far as Im concerned. Lets continue to spread the word about these products rather than have them battling each other.

You and I also agree on the significant attributes of balanced AC power trandformers and the utter naturalness, beauty and musical realism provided by SET amplifiers. Lets spread the joy.
Charles,

Agear, can you specify? By misinformation do you mean: Incorrect information, or information meant to deceive?

Misinformation. Troy works on both planes at least according to Miguel at tripoint...

Just a few words from the UK distributor of Entreq Silver Tellus. It connects directly to the rca/xlr/phono audio signal's ground plane, and has no relation to the mains, unlike Tripoint Troy which works in this latter domain.
However there is an option to ground directly to the distribution block which in effect allows grounding simultaneously to both mains and components' signal ground. And then there is grounding to the rack itself to form a Faraday cage effect.

The last few posts add nothing to the thread. It would be nice to hear from people who have used this and other similar technologies.

Did milk shoot out of your nose? That's the real test.

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

Atmosphere, come to think of it, I may have been wrong to include the Marigo dots, but, no, the WA Quantum chips and the Intelligent chip are 2 different things (but, as I said above, there are certainly quantum scams to be found out there). From what I've read (interviews with Jack Bybee, reviews and, yes, the advertising) Bybee devices do employ quantum physics. Dunno if every word of all that is true, although I don't feel I'm qualified to openly dispute it. Disputing things at this point is not really my goal with all this. I'm still trying to pick up on a lot. I think I see what you are getting at though, but I still see plenty of room for both viewpoints (house grounding and component grounding) to be included. It's your last statement above that sums it up for me..."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". I would say that, in all likelihood, is a fair assessment. But, for that very reason, the overall problem remains intractable. How much of the gains to be had can be derived from proper home grounding and how much from proper component grounding? For the present, there seems to be no real way for consumers to confidently, and correctly with a minimal amount of effort, ensure that their components use truly correct grounding schemes (to snuff out the match)...even though, like you say, many manufacturers should likely know better. OTOH, new grounding technologies for the home (the forest) are beginning to emerge and I believe they can in part help compensate for gear with inferior grounding schemes. And, in my mind, it may even be possible that they are going beyond that, but it's still unclear to me. While whether or not the real theoretical goal should be home grounding or component grounding, is, to me, largely intractable, it is not irrelevant. But, from necessarily a practical standpoint, maybe the best hope may lie with the forest. Neither on its own gets rid of all noise, but it does seem to be a big step forward.

Atmosphere, just wait'll ya get a load of the Super Intelligent Chip. By the way, the original Intelligent Chip was the big hit of CES way back in 2005.

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.

Atmasphere: Ok, I think you're right about my poor word choice. Let me see if I can fix that. I don't think Alan is really in the business of 'manipulating' Ohm's Law (and let me say that no one would think that it's somehow mutable less than I...or for that matter, Alan either, I believe) so much as he appears to actually be 'applying', or rather 'exploiting', it in brand new and innovative ways. By innovative, I mean that this is how he has arrived at a way to actually lower resistance throughout the system (as well as the home). Realize, that, up until now and going by the book, the ONLY way to do that has been by the designer's choice of metallurgy...and again, apparently, not anymore. That was all I was really trying to get across, but I can see now how the way I worded it above might've seemed like a possible red flag...and to somebody, I suppose, maybe it still is, but for the moment that's ok.

But, a number of years ago, I suppose I might have agreed with you about almost anything with the name "Quantum" attached to it. But, since then the number of products claiming to benefit from quantum physics only seems to have risen. We see them here in these pages: Bybee devices, W.A. Quantum chips and Marigo Dots among them. In my mind, these that I mention at least have not been "proven" to be a scam, not by what I've seen, anyway. I'm sure somewhere, some of such products may very well deserve that category, but, from what I can gather so far, not all of them. And while it may come as a surprise to anyone concerned, over the last 3 years I've been steadily buying Alan's products, now to the tune of about $10,000. Although I've pretty much reached my financial limit with all that at this point, there was never a purchase from him I ever regretted. I can assure you that I didn't wake up one day and decide that I was going to drop 10 large ones on anything. But, after the first 2 or 3 thousand or so, I began to think in terms of, first, using the purchases to fix a number of problems with performance and then, later on, I intended to continue to buy more stuff from him until I began to encounter evidence that I had pretty much reached the limit of what his stuff would do - until I felt I'd reached some point of diminishing return. I never reached it. That never happened, period. Never even came close, really. Each and every purchase brought about a whole 'nother level of performance in varying ways. Alan, BTW, has kept on coming up with new designs and I'm sure I could bleed myself dry if I made it a point from here on out to continue to try to keep up with him.

Then I finally began to get it. Electrical noise is basically infinite. No matter how much the individual product you made could reduce it, you could always make another additional product to reduce it even more. So, from there, it was just a matter of my own preference - that and striking the balance between a (very) high level of performance and financial self-preservation. But, I'm enjoying emensly where all that has finally come down for me. Atmosphere, my friend, your concern for my susceptibility to quantum scams is noted, but I seem to be doing just fine and don't feel inclined, at this point, to be running anywhere just yet. Peace.

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.

The Tripoint stuff can be used in any capacity whether it be chassis or via signal inputs

Agear, I don't believe it's any coincidence that I'm having such good improvements in SQ investigating first balanced power, and now grounding. I live in a semi industrial area with light industrial (transformers/motors), internet booster/mobile phone aerials, and broadband streaming in almost every apartment in my block - all of this pumping out serious hash into the mains, and possibly electromagnetic fields in the atmosphere. So I need all the solutions to corrupted power, and polluting hash going.
I've just connected my SET monoblocks to the Entreq, to add to preamp, cdp and Straingauge energiser (5 ground leads in total). Further improvements being experienced.
Not a tech head so can't discuss too much, but it looks like the old objective (components must be grounded correctly already, so can't on principle sound any better with more grounding) versus subjective (they do, so there must be an explanation beyond simple specs).
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.
Since the Silver Tellus plugs into spare rca/balanced sockets it works on the level of the signal, unlike Troy which attaches to equipment chassis' which may work more at component ground level.

I think Atmasphere is spot on about poor grounding schemes. I have heard that before from Dale Pitcher at ID. That being said, I also believe there is more to this story as Ivan (and Alan) intonate....bravo for taking this field further.

Agear and Atmosphere: Here's how I see it: I'm absolutely convinced there is, and has been, such a thing as bad grounding schemes in perhaps all manner of hifi gear up to now...happens all the time. But, I don't believe for a moment that alone can account for the differences I've witnessed in my own home from this kind of noise reduction...this seems to go far, far beyond any "textbook" definition of proper grounding (whether equipment, home or whatever). The reason I think it does so is because this kind of noise reduction seems to be closely identifying and resolving the real-world problems that have never been addressed by the established ee books...and, considering the frequently less stringent requirements for grounding outside the realm of A/V, maybe that's understandable. But, with the available lessons learned from modern quantum physics (and again on which I am no expert), I'm coming to believe in the possibility of the next generation of pioneering ee's giving us new applications of new materials and techniques. Alan says he didn't do anything but go back to how mother nature establishes a ground and tried not so much to take his cue from the literature...and also, for example, lessons learned from trial and error IN THE FIELD by various commercial entities - what happened to them when they tried to implement accepted and established principles - sometimes with success and sometimes not...a frank look at the underlying conditions behind why those efforts sometimes work and why they sometimes don't. After all, THAT sort of thing to me is the REAL classroom - what happens when something accepted is applied and it doesn't entirely work. It's from that kind of endevor that we eventually wind up with the textbooks. I think so many people seem to get that cart before the horse - as if textbooks (theories alone) are somehow the "bleeding edge" of technology - to me, that's pretty close to myth. Of course the more we add to the texts, the more things we can hope to (endevor to) accomplish, but the REAL advances come when we are confronted with the unexpected challenge and we need to re-examine what we think we know. After all, this is precisely how those wonderful textbooks came to be in the first place. They didn't spring forth from a vacuum, but from necessary real-word problem solving. In my view, the classroom textbook is actually the back end of the process - it's the real world that's the front end. What is taught today is applied (and corrected) tomorrow - only to be taught differently the day after...and on it goes. It's just that now the folks who are far more familiar than I with quantum physics are getting their chance to take a crack at the problem. I believe there IS such a thing as innovation (and, without knowing, it can conceivably come from virtually any quarter), but without that inside track (quantum physics, in this case), the consumer then has no one else to rely on but himself when trying to put himself in a position to recognize innovation even when he's first looking at it. And that, I grant you, is therefore not always an easy or straightforward thing to do...but, come to think of it FWIW, that much about innovation has been true as far back as I can remember.

I also think Alan has figured out a rather extreme method for manipulating Ohm's Law in order to lower resistance house-wide in a way that evidently has not been done before and that this has led to his remarkable 'monopoly' on his brand of applications (which he's currently very busy recombining every time he has a breakthrough in a given area) and this so far has allowed him to keep going and moving the ball forward - not only to the point of coming up with ever-higher-performing products that are comparatively expensive (some over $1k each), but those that overwhelmingly outperform his previous examples, yet at a small fraction of the cost, as well. So, right now the sky's the limit and nobody seems to be on to his game yet. I expect that will remain true for quite a while, but we'll have to see how long that lasts...

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.

Ivan, the video changes are telling. Tripoint users have made similar observations. there's more to this than erroneous grounding schemes. Unless of course pioneer or Sony engineers are also clueless. Self-promotional hubris perchance?

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.

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.

Ralph, the following manufacturers need to hire you as a grounding consultant:

AMR, Neodio Stahl-tek, Koda, BMC, Tube Research Labs, Gryphon, Accustic Arts, Tom Evans, Hovland, ASR, Emm Labs, Hovland, Karan, Exemplar, H-CAT, Boulder, Audionote, Gaku, Esoteric...just to name a few.

I guess we are faced with two paradigms here: suffocating, reductionistic thinking from a 1950s engineering textbook or a brave new frontier where all the answers or solutions for "noise" are not fully elucidated. I have repeatedly bumped into the former in regards to wire. Wire should not make a difference the engineers say...just pure audiophile witchcraft. The experiments we all know from the 80s clearly demonstrated that right? Well, newer measurement tools (http://www.stereophile.com/rmaf2010/nordost_and_vertex_measurements/) demonstrate changes in jitter with changes in cords, power conditioning, etc. Obviously there is more to the equation here.

It would be interesting to use that same software to measure effects of these magic grounding boxes, etc.

Ralph, Miguel at Tripoint loves a challenge. The next time you are at a show and have a room, an after hours demo is in order!

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.

But, what I'm trying to get at here is that I think we're more or less on the verge of a paradigm shift and that "electrical noise reduction" represents the next step.

True, true. And it does seem like Alan is an innovator. The only issue for him is that "on the surface" his stuff appears a little woo-woo and flakey. Does his technology reduce domestic violence or engender peace?

I am personally glad that Alan and Entreq and Tripoint are getting people's attention. Its about time....

Davehrab: "... as a matter of fact in high school I was so poor in math that I thought that Calculus was Julius Caesar's hair dresser".

...wait...you mean he wasn't?!? :)

Jfrech: No sweat. Do give us an update at some point, I'm curious too. The 2 Maher products I have took about a month to fully come on song, BTW.

Ivan...thanks for taking the time to write this. So I have a friend getting a demo of the Entreq...he'll bring it by my home (might be 6-8 weeks)...only way is to try this...i'm sincerely curious...

Ivan thanks for the kind words but unfortunately I’m am not an EE or even a lab assistant ... as a matter of fact in high school I was so poor in math that I thought that Calculus was Julius Caesar's hair dresser
.

Davehrab: good post. Glad to see someone with more ee experience chiming in. All extremely interesting and useful.

Jfrech: I think Spirit is basically right, but what I'm seeing that the difference amounts to is the distinction between the traditional "power conditioning" we're so far familiar with and this emerging new field of "electronic noise reduction" - similar, but different. Traditional power conditioning evolved from simple designs usually involving the more basic ingredients for filtering like caps and chokes and so on - good, but they can have their limitations...the technical side of which I will spare you, but everyone has had to deal with the downsides to power conditioning - inconsistencies in performance due to various conditions or factors - things like: time-of-day or weather and seasonal changes, voltage irregularities (here you could talk about AC regeneration, but surprisingly it's just as vulnerable to these changing factors as anything else is). But, most of all and particularly familiar to those of us who've kept some kind of tabs on user reports on power conditioners - there can be some sort of infringement on the sonic performance of the system...some loss of bass, or treble or dynamics...that tends to pop up with a somewhat disturbing degree of regularity in almost any thread on the subject, do they not? Look at Spirit's own direct experience with his Burmester. The inference is that there all kinds of conditioning out there, some good, some great...and some, in the end, not so great. So how much do you really have to know to market a conditioning product? How many makers out there are the real thing and how many are just pretenders? Hard to say, but the fact is that anything less than a completely successful conditioner (i.e. one that plainly improves the sound quality and without compromising it at the same time) is liable to be seen as an unfortunate investment, regardless of price. But, what I'm trying to get at here is that I think we're more or less on the verge of a paradigm shift and that "electrical noise reduction" represents the next step. In its new form, apart from traditional power conditioning, you might recognize it by its inclusion of some form or another of quantum physics (on which I'm basically next to clueless so far) that will likely involve proprietary materials and, increasingly, an absence of any of the traditional parts like caps, diodes, resistors, chips, etc. For Alan's part, he has said all of the products he makes do only one thing: reduce electrical noise. I own thousands of dollar's worth of his stuff, but I've not yet heard any of it to introduce anything I could interpret as a negative impact on the sound...all utterly without adverse effect. But, he says he does not own an "audio" company because this sort of technology has applications everywhere. I even have it in my car. It's applied to the car's computer. For $60 I now get 50 extra miles per tankful. That same amount of fuel savings applies to any car in the world (that has a CPU). Imagine what the world impact would be if you could just flip a switch, and instantly every car in world had this simple technology installed. What would that do overnight for world economies? There are endless applications for this kind of thing: aeronautics, medical imaging, computers, communications - everywhere there is an electrical circuit there is virtually the possibility of an app for it. One of the things Alan has done with all this is a very sophisticated level of manipulating ohm's law in a way that reduces resistance. Up to now, the only way to do that has been through selective use of metalurgy. This is different. This is innovation. Not only has he found a way to this in a component, but in the whole home. It consumes little or no electricity from the wall, so it's utterly green. I even save money on my power bill. And it reduces all forms of EMI/RFI, in the in-wall wiring, in the components and in the air in the home - which brings with it health benefits for allergy suferers (like Alan) and those who suffer from auto-immune diseases. FWIW, Alan Maher has flown under a lot of people's radar so far, but I think that may begin to change in just the next few years. If he were publicly traded, I believe I would be buying his stock. I also think he (with help from his investors) is going to one busy dude for a while...a long while. That's one reason why I sound like a perpetual Alan Maher commercial any more...it's not that I just like saying the guy's name or anything, it's the endless innovation that seems to be coming, both for A/V and for everything else. Keep your eye on that guy, he just may end up being one of those special people in history who changes the world. Or, if you like, as Spirit says: "...I'll never go down the conditioning/filtering route again". I'm thinking that before it's all said and done an awful lot of hifi people may well be saying the same thing. Alan certainly won't be alone, there will be the Entreqs, the Tripoints and the rest, I'm sure, but I suspect in one respect or another, they will be struggling to catch up to where he is now...let alone where he will be... Jfrech: do I think the Entreq will not be that much of an improvement over your Shunyata? Somehow, I don't think so...from both what I believe and from what Spirit is saying... (An even longer post...oy vey...)

The Entreq appears to be a sink for stray voltage that is floating around on your component’s chassis and ground planes .. it might be using magnets or ceramics to provide a low impedance sink and path way for this stray voltage on the chassis to migrate to as it may be of lower impedance than the ground rod lies at ... ideally you would like your ground rod to be at 5 ohms or less but they can trend as high as 25 ohms of resistance

Generally the dryer the soil the higher the impedance (resistance) .. Texas, Arizona, and Nevada would come to mind ...

The higher the water table and moister content of the soil ... the lower the impedance due to better conduction in the moist soil

You can have a licensed electrician come out and preform a “Soil Resistivity” test to determine the impedance of the ground system

Voltage/Noise couples to the chassis and it’s ground planes and if the impedance at the ground rod is high enough the stray voltage will see the Entreq’s lower impedance and migrate down that path way

Electrical current has no loyalty ... it’s not very monogamous ... and will always travel down the path of least resistance as opposed to going where we intended it to travel

I see two factors which can contribute to the effectiveness of the Entreq and why some have success and others don’t

First is the impedance that your ground rod lies at .....

If it is equal to or lower than the Entreq sink impedance ... the stray voltage may see the ground rod as the lower impedance and migrate to it .. in which case the Enteq would seem relatively ineffective providing little to no improvement

How ever if the ground rod has a very high impedance due to dry conditions then the stray voltage will see the Entreq as the lower impedance and migrate to it ... in this case the Entreq will provide an audible improvement by lowering the noise floor

But wait a minute the ground wire is the third wire safety which is only there to provide a low impedance pathway for a fault (dead short) to travel on until the breaker trips ... it does not lie in the signal path nor is there any musical content on it ... Hmmm ???

It’s seems our equipment have two ground planes in them .. one is the Safety Ground for our protection and has nothing to do with the musical content and the other is the Signal Ground plane which I don’t believe is really a ground plane but the return leg for the audio signal

The return leg needs to be referenced to Zero volts so they tie the Signal Ground to the Equipment Safety ground for referencing assuming the safety ground was at Zero volts ... unfortunately it’s not and there is stray voltage on it and the metal chassis and because they reference or tie the signal return/ground plane to the Safety ground the stray voltage on the safety wire will loop back into the signal return/ground plane adding noise to the original signal ... besides not being loyal or monogamous electricity travels in loops and this is how the voltage (noise) travelling on the chassis and ground plane loops back into the signal and is presented as noise

By providing an alternate lower impedance pathway ... the stray voltage migrates to the Entreq instead of looping and coupling into the signal return/ground plan ... less stray voltage on the signal means lower noise floor

But wait ... there is a hitch .. some equipment have separate dedicated pathways for the Ground Safety circuit and the Signal Return/Ground plane circuit ... they are not connected or tied together so there is no way to for the stray voltage (noise) to migrate into the signal as noise riding on the line .. here the Entreq would have no effect as there is no connection between the Stray voltage floating on the chassis and ground planes and the Signal Return/ground plane

If your component has a separate Signal and Safety Ground plane .. like my Ayre does .. the Entreq will not help as the stray voltage can’t loop or migrate into the signal plane ... if your component has both planes tied together for reference then the Entreq can help

If your ground rod lies at a high impedance then the Entreq can help

So if your signal and ground plane are tied and your ground rod has high impedance this is where the Entreq brings the most improvement .. other combination become less effective

This may account for the mixed reviews and all the .. it does vs It doesn't .. because it will and it won’t .. ;-)
.

I contacted Entreq and unfortunately they do not have a US distributor but they are offering a money back guarantee. I am going to have to give this a try. I will report back.

J, I think you're comparing apples with oranges here. The Shunyata stuff is more down the line of conditioning/filtering ie the system is fed from the Shunyata boxes, whereas the Entreq grounding works in parallel with the system, ie it's not in the signal path, and works alongside, in my case, 4kVA balanced power.
For my part, after the dramatic improvements wrought eliminating my Burmester conditioner and installing balanced/grounding solutions, I'll never go down the conditioning/filtering route again.

Spirit...I wonder how much my Shunyata Triton and Typhon are already contributing here? Maybe I won't experience as much benefit? Not sure if any Shunyata users have tried these grounding boxes...

I've been using Entreq for a couple of months now, put me down as a total convert. I'm not a tecchie, so my explanation may be off. Don't shoot me.
From what I gather, components are producing copious amounts of RF/EMI. The earth of each component is expected to deal with this, but if the earth to the whole system is not substantial enough or components are not sufficiently grounded to drain to earth, this deleterious energy will remain in the system and be heard as a colouration.
From what I gather, the Entreq Silver Tellus/Apollo i/cs provide an unadulterated and unimpeded conduit for theis RF/EMI to drain totally away from the component/system and be disposed of away from the system.
Discharging these unwanted energies away results in a stabilising of the soundstage, and removing major veils that had been obscuring true transparency.

Ivan, very interesting reply...thanks for taking the time to write that...I'm in Austin, TX...very dry and only about a foot of soil (well sandy and some gravel) before I just hit rock. When it rains...I can definitely hear a improvement in sound quality...

not sure, but i'll say that when compared to floating the ground, my rig sounded better w/ TG Audio's AC conditioning box, which only conditions the ground using a specific combination of multiple bybees. hearing is believing. ground is a huge problem.

Tboooe: from the looks of it the Entreq unit may remain a bit of a mystery for the time being since any English-language description of it I've seen is so hopelessly mangled from the translation from Swiss. I have no experience with it (and don't yet know anyone who does). I could tell at least from one site that it's only part of an overall power delivery system for your rig and that it's apparently more popular in Europe than here (small wonder with that translation being the only product announcement I could see...not knocking the product at this point, just the means of its introduction). I use a Tricell Chemical Ground along with a Tricell Earth Filter from Alan Maher for this purpose which work very well - noticeable improvements in just about every sound attribute across the board. Very definitely they lower the noise floor. It is also astonishing to see the effect on video as well. You know when you see some fine print on a flat panel TV that consists of small, white text on a plain, light-colored background? If you look closely next time and adjust sharpness at the same time you'll notice the more you increase sharpness the more an artificial vertical edge appears right along side the vertical portions of the letters (at least on one side of them). All you can expect to do is reduce sharpness until legibility becomes optimal. That goes for image detail too, of course. This kind of image blurring is called "ringing" - the same kind you can see on an oscilloscope...also called "overshoot". These 2 products reduce ringing dramatically, not all-the-way completely, but VERY nearly so. I can ramp up the sharpness with out the usual garishness to the pic that tells me I've gone too far. It has made standard hidef TV look like 4k. Alan's is one of the very few forms of power conditioning that has actually addressed ringing. The audio benefits are equally remarkable. I'm betting you never thought your tweeters were capable of this level of smoothness, extension, dynamics and fine detail and utter clarity...I know I didn't til I heard it in my rig. But, from what Alan tells me, grounding is normally accomplished through the copper ground rod into the soil where a number of chemical compounds (a long list, actually) are in the presence of ground water (moisture). But it's those compounds in the presence of water that's key. Many people notice that their rig can sound inexplicably better after a 2-or-3 day gentle, soaking rain. Dryer ground or earth surrounding the rod that is depleted of some of the needed chemicals (which tends to happen naturally over the years anyway) lead to less than ideal ground. Also, newly built homes have the best ground at first, but this slowly changes over time also as the ground rod begins to corrode, as well. In some parts of the country even a house as new as 3 years can have little or no ground and after 10 years many homes will be effectively without ground. It matters where you live in that it may be much easier for the ground rod to penetrate the ground water level in, say, southern Florida than it may be up in the Colorado Rockies. In any case Alan maintains that the US code has been screwed up for decades. If your house has a finished basement for example, that spec'ed 8-ft ground outside one level above won't be enough to go below the basement and tap into the water table since the code also stipulates that that the basement be built so many inches above the water table to prevent leakage into the home. You might end up needing something more like a 20-ft rod and, depending on local conditions (General Contractors in your area should be able to clue you in about water table depth where you live), you may still not reach the water table. Alan packed the necessary compounds into the Tricell Chemical Ground, so any soil conditioning (which has been resorted to in the past, is no longer needed...it also acts as a true "portable ground" and is indeed a substitute ground even for homes that not were not built with any ground at all - only hot and neutral). The Tricell Earth Filter actually magnetizes the soil surrounding the ground rod and, together with some other of his products I have in my home, they do something in the way of lightning protection. Lightning strikes that hit nearby powerlines are not the usual culprit to equipment loss. That's because the power co. has a system (ever since the 1950's) of chokes and regulators along the lines every so often that makes this a non-issue (and if they didn't, they know everyone would be throwing rocks at them). But, they don't do anything about the ground rod because most people are accepting of the risk-vs-loss ratio of lightning striking a nearby tree. What's happening is that it runs down into the ground, finds the ground rod and gets into the home that way. Something close to 99% of loss is due to this entry point to the home. Alan's Reference Ground system provides, what is in essence, a system of chokes and regulators inside the home that absorbs lightning frequencies (lightning can be thought of as an intense burst of high-frequency noise). But, it remains to be seen just how effective all that will be and I suppose the only way I will ever know it didn't work as well as I'd hope will be if I lose some gear...like any other strategery, really. But, this is the one I chose to hitch my horse to and I'm loving it if for no other reason than the sound quality his Reference Ground system (which includes other pieces) is giving me (that alone is worth the price). But, NO system can protect anything from a direct enough hit. That's at least because of the magnetic pulse given off by lightning, just as surely as it emitts thunder. The magnetic pulse is strong enough to induce an actual voltage in anything metal, including your components - whether they are plugged into anything or not - which can fry just about everything inside. According to Alan, his system in total works to make circuit breakers (the usual thermal/magnetic kind, anyway) at the panel about 97% faster in their reaction speed (types other than thermal/magnetic tend to be increased by about 50%), so no more stupid surge protectors, as far as I'm concerned. In fact, I'm of the opinion, as I've stated before, that they don't really work, anyway. Or that they DO work Exactly as advertised - which effectively amounts to the same thing. IOW, they work beautifully, but in fact are no faster at all than any decent circuit breaker. Making them reliably faster would be incredibly expensive and technically very difficult...and few are even bothering to try in the first place. Why bother? Everyone is content with the surge protector myth, so as long as that's what they're buying, that's everyone will manufacture. I believe all they really do is add noise to the system and provide a false peace of mind. What I have from Alan amount to prototypes, but the finished versions will be available (probably in early 2014) as soon as his first B&M store is finished with construction in Nashville. Prices TBA, but probably somewhere in the neighborhood of $1k-1.2K each for these 2 products. Ok, Ok, another stoopid-long post, sorry, all...