Who else has the QKore grounding unit? I just got a QKore 6. If you are in the Nordost ecosystem I think this should be a priority upgrade over any other Nordost product.
An immediately noticeable increase in ease/transparency while lowering the noise floor and reducing digital glare. It’s one of the few cable products/tweaks that does not impart some type of sound signature, everything just got better and more real.
I am using a QB8 power distributor and Nordost Heimdall 2 power cables, so there is obviously a synergy going on here with the common design philosophy and the QB8 having a built in ground post. So I am not sure if users of other equipment will see such gains as I am hearing.
But this is a fantastic product and the option to ground 5 more devices gives lots of room for tweaking out of a single compact box item. It's a small but very solid chassis.
I don't own a QKore system, but I did hear an impressive demonstration at a dealership. The dealer's system was dead quiet prior to addition of the QKore, so the improvement was not merely from the removal of audible noise (I heard what you heard) as well as an improvement in soundstaging (soloist seem to float more freely in space). I was more impressed with the improvement than I've heard from other system treatments, such as power conditioners.
Unfortunately for me, my power amp does not have an extra input to connect it to the QKore, and the Nordost representative said that one cannot connect chassis ground instead. That is why I did not purchase the system.
This is perfect timing Mr. Agisthos as I was looking into this product as I have been researching the sonic value of '' grounding '' your system. The TriPoint products are beautiful but way out of my price range. I currently do not have a Nordost Conditioning system in place as I do own the Shunyata Triton V3 and Typhon QR series conditioning. I did not get a clear response from the Nordost dealer I spoke with as he was trying to sell the whole Nordost system to me and told him I was all set for now. I am thinking that the QKore grounding system can be added to my system on it's own. So what do you know on this situation and also did it really make that much of a sonic difference ? Let me know and thank you in advance.
I'm a little late on this thread, hopefully a relevant question.
I have had the QKORE in my system for 6 mo. I recently added a few components and found myself with an abundance of green Nordost interconnect cable routed through my rack. I only need 1m runs, but Nordost will not sell lengths below 2m.
Does terminating the wires less than 2m impact effectiveness? Recommended?
I reached out to Nodost, but the response I felt was ambiguous at best.
I just recently cleaned my audio room, took the entire system apart e.t.c
After putting it all back together it sounded great, but something was missing. I had not yet connected the QKore ground wire to the QB8 power distributor.
That single change then opened up the soundstage, removed digital-ness and made everything sound more natural. Could hear more detail, but not fatiguing, the opposite.
These grounding devices are essential. It’s hard to describe what the improvements are, because it’s not changes in tone or bass like you get with changing speaker/IC signal cables.
Just this one change made all the difference. You always wonder if a previous upgrade is as good as you think or were you just fooling yourself. Well it confirmed for me once again the QKore is awesome (connected to a Nordost QB8 anyway).
I am now going to get the QKore premium grounding wire and see if it’s any better than the stock. I need a 1m cable in that location and the premium ground wire is in 1m and 2m lengths, unlike the stock which is 2m only.
I'm in the same boat. I was one of the first to buy a Qkore6. I bought the standard ground wires which were the only wires available at the time....a few months later Nordost came out with the premium wires. ugh. Looking forward to hearing if the upgrade to premium ground wires is worth the $.
Same here. Bought the qkore then within weeks the premium wires were introduced. Even my dealer was a bit perturbed as he had purchased one also with the basic wires. I have since upgraded to two premium wires. Also, run two of 4 premium wires to my qpoints and one premium wire from the QSource to one of my switches.
As much as I sing the praises of the QKore I do not like it with the RCA wire cable so far.
I only have a secondary SPDIF RCA input on the DAC, and another SPDIF RCA output on the Oppo player. On either I find the QKore to do little or even be a slight negative. But this is no doubt a limitation of devices available to connect it to. I have no pre-amp or integrated amp, so no unused analog RCA sockets to try it on. So the RCA cable just sits in the box for now.
Nordost has QKore USB cables, ethernet cables, XLR e.t.c So far I have not splurged the cash on trying any of these. If any of you did let us know what these connections did for you.
I have a Qkore6 also. I use a banana-USB ground wire run to a back up USB input on my Innuos server. I also have a banana-ethernet ground cable run to my Qnet switch. A banana-male XLR run to an unused digital input of my DAC....All with great results.
QKore Premium wire incoming. Was supposed to get it today but delivery held back, so Monday hopefully. I only got the banana wire for connection to the QB8, so that’s the only application I can give a report on.
If the premium qkore wire is better, at least the price differential is not multiples of the tier below, as is often the case with Nordost cable tiers.
Reporting back on QKore 6. I have made a few forum posts voicing my slight disappointment with the QKore other than grounding to the QBase power distributor (where it works awesomely).
But I had limited ways to try it, only an Oppo streamer and Teddy Pardo DAC, neither of which worked well.
Now I have new kit, a Naim 272 Streamer/DAC/Pre. Lots of ports to try it. QKore did not seem to make much of a difference on the analog RCA inputs/outputs of the pre-amp section. The digital section had a BNC output, and using an adaptor, yes this made a slight improvement.
Next up the spdif digital inputs (RCA and BNC). Bingo. Here a large improvement, so much so I am buying a QKore premium wire BNC cable just to max this particular grounding connection.
My limited experience of grounding shows its system dependant. Does not work in all, or even half the cases, but when it does its huge. So experimentation is a must.
But how does this "passive approach to obtaining an artificial, “clean” earth for hifi audio systems" compare with Puritan's ground master, where one does actually connect the ground of the power conditioner to a ground rod on the outside of ones house to earth?
I don't know, I have the latter, I am not implying it is better, because I don't know. I would hope not as it is quite a bit less money. I imagine the ones who have tried both in their system is slim to none.
I also imagine employing both grounding strategies may be counterproductive?
This Nordost is similar to synergistic research's grounding blocks with the exception that the SR is active- it plugs in- anyone compared these?
Running another separate ground rod to earth is against code in most places so watch that. It is here in Australia, where having different ground rods can effect the MEMS connection at the fuse box.
Probably best comparison would be to compare Puritan Groundmaster City vs QKore 1 on a power distributors ground terminal. There is a large price difference, the Puritan is only $250.
I just upgraded my QKore ground wire from standard to premium for one of the connections, a BNC digital input on a Naim streamer.
From first plug in, it seemed a subtle and just OK upgrade, like better bass. But after leaving it working 48 hours, a new level of transparency and lower noise floor that was surprising. A great upgrade for the price, the 2m Premium QKore wire being only about $500 USD. One of the cheapest cable line upgrades Nordost do...
I was using a RCA-BNC adaptor on the standard QKore wire, so don't know what difference that could have made.
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