Well, I just connected up the Altaira's demo unit. As long as I just have my Lumin connected to it, the music sounds good, there seems to be more detail and "life" in the music. However, when I connect additional items, I.e., amps, subs, etc.to the Altaira I get some pretty nasty buzz through the speakers. I'm gonna keep playing with it but seems like there is a ground loop when its used. ozzy |
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Hello Ozzy ......yes I did a few months back. In short, I kept my amp and pre-amp on the TriPoint Thor Signature and placed my Esoteric CD player on the Shunyata Altaira. The reason I did that was that to my ears the Esoteric sounded much more open and ohhhhh gosh ; organic on the Shunyata than it did on the TriPoint. The TriPoint has such an analog sound that to me ... the system just fell into place. The Altaira is a wonderful product and if I never had the TriPoint grounding system and I never knew or could experience the difference, I would put the whole system on the Shunyata. Note : if your system sounds good right now ; do yourself a favor and look into a grounding system as it will or should, make a difference. Stay well..... |
@ddrave44 I will only tell you the warning that I was given regarding Altaira; Don’t try unless you’re prepared to buy! You won’t want to send it back! Good luck with everything and if it works half as well for you as it does for me, you’ll probably conclude it was money well spent. It’s incredible technology. |
Hi Clyde2 @clyde2 This is great to know. Thank you! I was wondering whether the job was done or if there's more to be gained. Sounds like a 30 day trial of an Altaira makes good sense. |
Nice to know there are inexpensive ways to improve your system’s performance. @ddrave44 I started with DIY cables from my components to the ground lug on my Denali with excellent results. So much so that I went for the Altaira. The hubs are designed to be amenable to an incremental implementation. I started with the Chassis Hub and a mix of Shunyata Alpha cables and the DIY ones I made. With the Altaira in place the improvement was staggering. Rearranging the cables also proved beyond any doubt the purpose built models were far superior. I then added a Signal Hub and implemented a “segmented” framework with the digital gear to the SG hub and analog to the CG hub. The amount of noise removed from my system allowed it to reproduce music like never before. I truly heard new and different subtleties in music I had been listening to for decades. The lowered noise floor simply allows more music to get through unobstructed by noise. I thought it couldn’t get any better but I have been proven wrong and joyfully so. Shunyata has recently released a new power distributor called Gemini. It is a dual function unit that incorporates Altaira-like grounding capabilities. Shunyata states it is perfect for smaller systems, headphone systems, and “network closets” as it will allow for grounding the noisy network gear like routers, switches, and the like. I use it in the latter application. Grounding these last components provided another jaw dropping improvement. You have no idea how much garbage enters your system through its network connections, or at least I didn’t. The dual use Gemini costs less than a single Altaira hub so the grounding it provides is obviously to a lesser degree but it’s effectiveness in my system was amazing. I have read in more reviews, posts, and critiques than I can recall how the writer will always provide the qualifier, “if your system is resolving enough…” to hear whatever he or she is referring to. Before grounding my system in the progression detailed above, I always assumed that to mean, if your gear was “expensive enough to be resolving enough”… My components haven’t changed in some time but their collective performance has improved exponentially. The process is not cheap by any stretch of one’s imagination, but was significantly less expensive than moving up a rung or 2 on every piece in the system. To those who insist it “can’t work” or request hard data to back up claims like these, I can only submit to your intellectual superiority and acknowledge all of this must be in my head. Confirmation bias and all that…. Please kindly try to refrain from the usual attacks that a post like this usually elicits here. They do nothing to move the discussion forward.
To anyone with an open mind and the willingness to try, I say please do. The beginning experiment in grounding will only set you back a few bucks. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. You might be very pleasantly surprised. I certainly was. |
Thanks HolyDean. That Mike & Rick interview with Caelin is very helpful. So after watching that and reading the Shunyata website I got out the Ohm meter and found screws on each of my components that showed 0 resistance to the ground input plug. I set up a star ground with 10 gauge wire that drains any voltage from each component’s chassis to the grounding lug on my Denali. Wow. The system hum is down maybe 80-90% to the point where I only hear it if my ear is within 18" of the speakers. No longer filling the room with a soft hum. But the important result is that whole system sounds better. I already though it was good and went after the hum as an academic exercise. I wasn’t ready for how it seemed to move me up from the 10th row to the 3rd in terms of clarity and palpability of the singers and instruments. (CJ tube pre/amp and dcs player) The music is more engaging now. |
i currently am trialling the Altaira. it is connected to analog components (power supply for TT, RIAA, Integrated Amplifier and Step up Transformer). i installed it only last night. all of my system is from audio note. i immediately noticed the SUT hum was gone entirely. the noise level has been significantly lowered. so much so that i am still getting used to it. it makes some music sound better, it makes some music sound less flamboyant (i think because it removes some distortion which can be quite fetching in some contexts). i found the accompanying literature very edifying (basic grounding concepts). i don't imagine there would be too many people who wouldn't get something out of this. i do wonder if certain components are voiced such that with the grounding sorted we lose some of that voice/thickness. the detail is beyond the pale though. last night it was Silkworm's "Lifestyle" and for the first time ever i heard overtones on an electric guitar (similar to what i hear when i play in my home). so it seems to be allowing harmonic information to come thru that i do not normally get. worth a shot is my advice. you might like it. it certainly does quite a bit in my system although i am as yet unsure as to whether or not i will buy it (slightly more to do with available funds than anything else though).
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Oh, the comments about how one should set up a plain ground bar were in a video on YouTube. If you search for "Shunyata Altaira" and then click on the one with "Mike & Rick," Caelin talks about it there. For a nice simple copper grounding bar I like the SMD UB-8 (Universal Power/ Grounding Bar - 8 post). |
I got off the phone with a client yesterday. He went through the entire process I specify. He reworked his grounding, panels, subpanels, branch wires. He got rid of as much aluminum as he could. He did it all accept for install an isolation transformer. After he finished the work he tried an Altaira. He heard nothing, so he returned it. I have had other clients do the same, rework their electrical. When done, they get rid of filters they plug into the wall. Not all of them. Some. A few filter in particular go, and a few stay. Reworking your electrical can be as expensive as a component. And you can't remove it and sell it for 40% of what you spent on it. But I believe it is the foundation of all audio based music. It is as necessary as a speaker, amp and source. If you are missing any one of the 4, you don't have a functional audio reproduction system. You can live without everything else. You don't need a stand, room, footers, ground box, filter. You don't need any of it. If I was spending $$$ to upgrade my audio performance, I would put a ground box as very low on the list of to do. I would put optimizing your electrical up there with speaker and room. It’s a very audible change the investment. I would put an isolation transformer in well before a ground box. They cost close to the same or less when you start adding in all the ground cables. |
The Shunyata Altaira Ground System uses actual noise suppression filtering electrical components inside each the two boxes. Not pixie dust, not iron fillings, not dirt taken from the deepest parts of the earth, but actual electrical component noise filters. In the video I posted above in this thread Gabriel explains the noise filters used in the system, and how they are connected.
Earth Ground,... can be confusing. If you look an electrical wiring diagram for the electrical system of an automobile you will see the earth ground symbol used at various places in the diagram. We all know an automobile electrical system does not have a connection to mother earth. Same for a Laptop computer. If you were to look at a wiring diagram for a typical laptop computer you will see the earth ground symbol used. The F-35 Lightning II Jet Fighter has probably one of the most sophisticated electronics systems in the world. No doubt Faraday shielding and noise filtering galore, but no connection to mother earth.
0 potential referenced point measured to where? Maybe in the sphere around the ground rod. The Utility power transformer neutral, (The Grounded Conductor), is connected to mother earth again at the electrical service of the house.
And the high voltage power Line neutral, (Grounded Conductor), is also connected to the step down Utility isolation Transformer’s secondary center tapped neutral. Both are connected to mother earth by the ground wire.
Yeah, an open neutral conductor connection can cause big problems on a 3 wire split phase power system. Same thing can happen on a 3 wire multiwire branch circuit used inside the home. Another good reason not feed audio equipment using a 3 wire multiwire branch circuit. One thing that should be made clear for the laymen reading this thread. The neutral, (The Grounded Conductor), is an intentionally grounded current carrying conductor. . Here is a White Paper Worth reading: https://www.fullcompass.com/common/files/5644-PowerandGroundingforAudioandAudioVisualSystems.pdf . |
I watched an interesting ground box video today. Not released to the public yet. The author is very conscious to state its a controversial topic as most people have no idea how a ground box works. I have no idea myself. I have never heard a good reason either. If anything, I have heard good evidence why they should not work. Were supposed to believe you can suck stray electrons off something. This guy was actually saying it may, and I say may have something to do with altering the mass of the device so it absorb energy. He has no idea either. Just ether talk he hears. And why would your system ground influence the performance of a ground box. Why does Caelin say a good ground system at the house helps. Are we to believe that once the box grabbed the electrons, its now going to willingly release them. To where? Earth. I have at a job and at my house lifted the ground and heard nothing. Of course this whole earth ground concept gets a little convoluted when you start to consider that the neutral from the utility is also a 0 potential ground. Its better than the ground at your house. That is how a clamp on ground resistance tester works. It know the utility grid is made up of tens of thousands of grounds. There is a ground dropped at every transformer across the city and country. They are all tied together . Walk the line and look. The neutral never breaks. The phases are split every 5 or 6 houses. The earth resistance meter injects a signal into the ground wire and does a calculation based upon the utility being 0, so everything else is your earth ground. So lifting your house ground is only loosing one ok ground. You still have a 0 ohm ground from the utility. If you lift the utility ground, all heck breaks loose. You may light your house on fire. I have done clean up after a utility neutral broke at a clients house out at the pole. He lost a few appliances. His door bell transformer burned to a crisp. Lucky his house did not go up in flames. Literally. The part I found interesting was his experience. They are a lot of money for little gain. Like, he thinks he hears it. He’s pretty sure he hears it. But he is also very aware of conscious bias. I just spent blablabla amount of money. Its got to be great. I know there are other areas related to your electrical supply that make much more audible and unmistakable changes to equipment performance. I think his video solidified a statement I heard from another well know member of the audiophile community. Ground boxes are a finishing touch. When all else is done, go ahead and try a box. That person has about 4 or 5 in his system. |
@kingrex Said:
Please provide the quote(s) from my post(s) where I did... . |
Jea, quit putting words in my mouth. I never said anything of the sort. I said people populate the internet with stories of ground wires to blocks of this and that and they make better music. I simply tried it myself, measured and heard nothing. It may be because I have excellent branch circuit wiring as well as service bonding to ground. You also appear to be overly infatuated with ground as earth and seem to miss a lot of the rest of the equation. Have you ever been in a recording studio. Have you seen how they land their equipment. Its not on fancy wood stands. Its in a metal rack where the frames of all the equipment are bolted to said rack. And those racks have up to a 2/0 piece of copper that goes back to the earth ground. So why would someone in a home environment not think that lacking a metal rack to bond the case too, why not use a wire from ground stud to ground stud. Why did Magico make a very nice stand that also has a solid copper ground bar top to bottom. Maybe they are only talking vibrations. I don't know. Per Magico A full-length pure copper grounding rod is featured on the MRACK which allows each shelf and component to be grounded and funnel noise away from the electronics. https://www.magicoaudio.com/mrack I don’t think its foolish or a waste of time for people to try ground enhancement technique in their own system. It could be someone has dirty cords, loose connections, mismatched branch wiring. All symptoms that may lead to ground loops. Who knows, maybe a common ground bond from stud to stud might reduce noise from those issues. Bring all the equipment to a more equal potential. I would not say that is a solution. Its more a band aid to me. But it may work for some. I really only get pissed when people say to break the ground and put a loose rod in the yard. It may sound better. I will never know because I put life and safety above getting better sound. Otherwise, try what you want. It was not many years back the first ground boxes came out filled with Pixi Dust and people cried to the mountain tops it was all snake oil. You can’t drain noise!!!!!! Well, now even Shunyata has one. Did something fundamentally change about electricity. No. Some people just though about it in a different way other missed. Has Caelin published what he is doing. I don’t think so. I actually head him say he pots his technology in an epoxy you can not drill, chip or burn away to protect his technology from reverse engineering. |
Kingrex said:
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My point? Are you saying that EMI current can be drained, diverted, to the Earth? Where’s the circuit? Through the Earth, to where? It has to return to the source doesn’t it?
Henry Ott, Myths: 6. An earth ground is unidirectional, with current only flowing into the ground. False, because current must flow in loops, any current that flows into the ground must also flow out of the ground somewhere else
Somewhere else? Back to the source?... Why would the EMI current travel through the ufer ground, (concrete-encased electrode), to the earth to get back to the source when it can travel through the #4CU conductor, (Grounding Electrode Conductor), that connects the ufer ground to the Grounded Conductor in the service equipment panel?
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After watching the Gabriel interview video I posted above, here is my understanding of how the Shunyata Altaira Ground System works,
Each of the two Shunyata ground filter boxes has 7 grounding posts. 1 thru 6 are for audio equipment connections. The 7th ground post, identified CGC, is for connecting the common clean ground bus of one filter box to another Shunyata ground box. The identified ground post is also used to connect the CGC ground post to a reference ground of the building AC power system. (Therein the EGC contact on a wall outlet or an insulated IG conductor installed back to the System Ground of the electrical service. (The final point of connection being the electrical service Grounded Conductor.)
Each of the 6 grounding posts for the audio equipment are connected to individual EMI noise filters. (Therein each grounding post has its own filter. The other end of each filter is connected to a common ground bus. Supposedly there will not be any EMI on the (filtered) clean ground bus. All of the audio equipment (grounds) are connected together by the clean ground bus... The identified CGC ground post is also connected to the clean ground bus.
The EMI filtering takes place in the Shunyata ground filter system box... Mother Earth is not involved. . |
The System Ground, therein Mother Earth connection is not involved. The Earth does not possess some magical mystical power that sucks nasties from an audio system. Please provide any credible evidence that says it does... The main purpose of the System Ground is for lightning protection. . Grounding Myths . / / / / . Read the writings, White Papers, on Earth Grounding by, Henry W Ott Ralph Morrison Bill Whitlock Neil A Muncy . |
I dug around Shunyata site and did not find where Calin talks about grounding with a bar of copper and 16 awg wire. Can you point it out. I have tried a few times in the past to make this type of install work. I have a 1/2" thick OFC copper bar I drilled and tapped to accept wires. I have used 10 awg bare copper, 14 awg bare copper, 20 awg dead soft silver wire, 20 awg dead soft silver wrapped in cotton with a mylar shield that is grounded on the bar end only. I never heard a thing with any configuration. I have bonded the bar to the ground system at my house with a dedicated bare copper #4 dropped 4 feet a ufer ground bonding my entire electrical system that reads about 4 ohms. Still heard nothing. I have taken the #4 and split bolted all the component ground wires I attached to the ground stud and still heard nothing. In the video Caelin did mention you want the electrical system ground properly. I don’t feel loose ground wires behind your rack is what he is talking about. He is talking about the branch circuit grounds connections to the earth ground in the main panel. I believe in ground boxes and will try one. Probably a Shunyata. I am up in the air on using Shunyata technology or Entreque. I have meet enough people who use ground boxes and believe they are a benefit. I have never met a person who uses a a ground box that has eliminated it from the electrical system. I have met people who have used one, then moved to another brand. But never have they decided a ground box is not an overall benefit. FWIW, If I put a meters on the ground stud of a component and touch other sections of the component, I always read stray voltage on the case. It can be up to a half a volt. I would assume a ground box dropping this type of stray voltage out of the system (if possible) would be a benefit. Honestly, I have no idea what a ground box does. If there is any measurable change that I could see with my tools. Per my grounding above, I did not measure any change. I will also note, the stray voltage riding on the case is constantly in flux rising and falling. It is never stable. So its hard to measure.
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I for one am looking forward to your review of the Shunyata Altaira Grounding Station. I watched the video below and found Gabriel’s explanation of how it works makes sense to me. / / / / This from another thread I posted here on Agon: (Edited) What I know about the Shunyata ALTRAIRA Ground System I learned from watching the video below. What Gabriel has built, and his explanation of how it works, makes sense to me. He uses individual filters that are connected, to each ground post on the back of the box that are then connected to a common ground conductor. So all the filtered grounding posts are connected together. He has two boxes. One for the Chassis ground and one the signal circuit ground. NOTE no where in the video does he promote floating, disconnecting, the EGC from any audio equipment that uses it. If fact, as I remember from watching the video, He says, and rightly so, the electrical service connection to mother earth is for lightning protection. Not for, shunting, diverting, noise to earth... He didn’t fully explain, unless I missed it, how he treats the chassis of Class II double insulated audio equipment where an EGC is not used. That equipment is different... That equipment the Signal ground and DC B -, is connected directly to the chassis. One mistake I caught was him saying that tube equipment designers connect the signal ground and DC B - directly to the chassis. That’s not true. Some might, but not all. What I did find interesting, if true, is that some equipment designers dump the noise the rectifier(s) make in the DC power supply(s) and SMPS onto the chassis. That would corrupts all the audio equipment as I see it. Maybe Gabriel could show them designers of audio equipment how to install a filter between the signal ground, DC B - , and chassis. That would solve a lot problems. ..
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....just a follow up on my thread as it has been 2 1/2 weeks now since I placed my order and no Altria as of this writing. My dealer who is a good one by the way, has no shipment date as of last night. I do find it odd that Shunyata has a new product to offer that was also named '' Product Of The Year '' by Absolute Sound and now it would appear that they no finished products in the '' pile line '' to ship out to their customer's. That is just MY opinion on that comment but I do find it a little odd. It could be that the demand was bigger than their supply which I hope is the case which is good for Shunyata, but not for us the customer. My concern is that I have not been given any time frame for delivery, which is bothersome to me. More to follow and stay well .........
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.......Holydean and glad that you recognized that there is a difference between grounding for let's say ; electrical shock such as a lightning strike as opposed to component grounding in which continuity continuity between components has been established. I have not received the Altaira as of this writing so not sure if there is a back up on these pieces. |
Well, Shunyata recommend that before one buys their system one should start with a basic grounding system, otherwise one would not be able to see the difference objectively. Id est, if you go out and buy their system you may hear a huge improvement, but alas that improvement was because your system had ground noise that could have been fixed by any cheap grounding system. They even have a free PDF guide you can use to help you achieve consistent results by measuring signal ground to chassis ground, and so forth. I thought it was refreshing to hear such honest advice, and I took it. I bought a solid copper ground bar with solid copper posts and wired up my own OCC 16 gauge ground wires that are all 4' long. Total cost was less than $300. I wired this into the back of my Shunyata Denali. I had an obsessively well-grounded system to start, with an isolated ground that goes into the ground behind my gear rack. So I was not expecting much improvement by adding star grounding to my components. My system is also in a room that is thoroughly well treated with acoustic panels on the walls and diffusors on the ceilings, and gear that most would consider to be respectable. (My disclaimer to the trolls: If you don't have a well-treated room, the benefits of improving system ground will be masked by your room that is full of acoustic noise. Remove the plank from your own eye before you criticize the speck in your brother's eye.) As promised by Shunyata, this initial system did make an audible improvement which I believe could easily be measured in the S/N ratio because it is eliminating very low level ground loop-type noise. (Another disclaimer to the trolls: People who consider products like this usually have already blown thousands and thousands of dollars on acoustic treatments for their listening rooms. Think on that for a while before you comment. Thank you.) So, I can say that following Shunyata's PDF instructions on how to set up your grounding bar works flawlessly. I believe even the cheapest high-conductivity copper wire all run to a star ground will help to reduce measurable ground noise in any system. That all being said, my cheap grounding system, set up per Shunyata's instructions, was a modest improvement in making the black silence between notes blacker, and revealing more detail in the sound. It was not just making the sound "different" but was definitively an improvement. It just sounded cleaner. So, while I'm not providing a true report on the Shunyata Altaira, I can say that following their advice (to install a star grounding / external ground bus system like they recommend) is a cheap and highly recommended step in the right direction for any of us who would even consider an Altaira. Halz |
I just watched a YouTube about it with the CEO of Shunyata being interviewed by Absolute Sound magazine. It sounds interesting for sure. He talked about star grounding and the importance of having grounds be independent from one another. So, yes I look forward to your review of this class of product which I suppose would fall under the umbrella of "power conditioning?" |
