REVIEW: Comparison of 5 High End Digital Music Servers - Aurender N10, CAD CAT server, TotalDac d1-Server, Auralic Aries, Audiophile Vortex Box

Scott also added -

"As far as principals:
The Ground Control is a passive box. It does not connect to any power source. It contains a mixture of materials that reduces high frequency energy.
Most audio engineers put a lot of effort into making sure the various DC power supplies have low ripple and noise, but typically not much thought is put into the Ground Plane. When I say Ground Plane, I am not talking about Earth. Earth is what the third pin on your mains plug is connected to. Earth is what all the copper pipes in your home are connected to. Earth is not typically (but sometimes is) connected to the ground plane in higher quality audio components.
I feel the Ground Plane is just as important to sound quality as the "positive" DC and AC voltage side.
A good example is Signal to Noise ratio. Basically this is the maximum output of a device (0dB) divided by the minimum output of a device (the noise). The reference for both of these measurements is Ground. If Ground is absolutely loaded with noise, a S/N measurement is completely missing out on this ground plane noise. S/N does not tell you anything about the amount of noise on the Ground Plane. Unfortunately there is no common acceptable measurement that does. That is a real shame, because in audio I feel it is crucial".

smial1966 said:

Hi Roy,

Norwich is a fine city. I'm on the cusp of 'The Wash' in King's Lynn.

I asked Scott about the technological aspects of his grounding box and understandably he said this -

"I am sorry but I can not divulge how the CAD Ground Control box works. I have spent over 2 years working on the design and it is of no benefit to CAD to just give away technology gained from all that hard work (and substantial money invested) to my competitors.
Until very recently I had no idea what Entreq was doing. Now that some guy on Facebook has opened one up we all have some idea of what is going on. (I am personally sorry for Entreq that that has happened to them). Now that I have seen the internals of an Entreq box all I can say is that the CAD Ground Control is not doing anything even remotely close to the way that Entreq is".
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smial1966 said:

Hi Roy,

Norwich is a fine city. I'm on the cusp of 'The Wash' in King's Lynn.

I asked Scott about the technological aspects of his grounding box and understandably he said this -

"I am sorry but I can not divulge how the CAD Ground Control box works. I have spent over 2 years working on the design and it is of no benefit to CAD to just give away technology gained from all that hard work (and substantial money invested) to my competitors.
Until very recently I had no idea what Entreq was doing. Now that some guy on Facebook has opened one up we all have some idea of what is going on. (I am personally sorry for Entreq that that has happened to them). Now that I have seen the internals of an Entreq box all I can say is that the CAD Ground Control is not doing anything even remotely close to the way that Entreq is".

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I'm Ross, Roy is @romaz . Try saying that quickly when intoxicated :¬)
 
Thanks. Knowing Scott's attention to detail I would have expected (and hoped) for nothing less. 
 
"Norwich is a fine city". You know how to please us local folk :¬)

If you start saving your money now, you could buy the ultimate grounding box, a Tripoint Troy Signature, to ground your Mac Mini.  Only 24900€.
 

 

What in the world...

Anyone try the synergestic research grounding block?
 
Link to one for sale
https://app.audiogon.com/listings/tweaks-synergistic-research-grounding-block-holiday-special-get-an-hd-component-grounding-2015-12-03-accessories-92307-apple-valley-ca

bozebuttons said:

  Anyone try the synergestic research grounding block?
 
Link to one for sale
https://app.audiogon.com/listings/tweaks-synergistic-research-grounding-block-holiday-special-get-an-hd-component-grounding-2015-12-03-accessories-92307-apple-valley-ca

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I haven't tried it yet but I have one on order through thecableco.com.  I was initially skeptical but a few people I have communicated with have indicated that it works well.  If I find it doesn't work well, I have 30 days to return it.  The current promotion sounds like a decent deal as they're throwing in an HD cable for the standard price of the block, a $300 savings.  The benefit of this grounding block is that it can ground 18 units with one block and the standard grounding cables sell for only $100 each.  I can't imagine it will be as good as Entreq's best offering (Olympus box with Atlantis cable) but my interest in it is to ground the chassis of my power supplies and power conditioner as some have suggested this makes a difference.  I will also try grounding my subwoofer to see if I can make the small hum disappear.

romaz said:

  I haven't tried it yet but I have one on order through thecableco.com.  I was initially skeptical but a few people I have communicated with have indicated that it works well.  If I find it doesn't work well, I have 30 days to return it.  The current promotion sounds like a decent deal as they're throwing in an HD cable for the standard price of the block, a $300 savings.  The benefit of this grounding block is that it can ground 18 units with one block and the standard grounding cables sell for only $100 each.  I can't imagine it will be as good as Entreq's best offering (Olympus box with Atlantis cable) but my interest in it is to ground the chassis of my power supplies and power conditioner as some have suggested this makes a difference.  I will also try grounding my subwoofer to see if I can make the small hum disappear.

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Have you tried lifting the ground with a cheater plug on your subwoofer to get rid of the small hum?
Looking forward to your impressions of the ground block.

bozebuttons said:

  Have you tried lifting the ground with a cheater plug on your subwoofer to get rid of the small hum?
Looking forward to your impressions of the ground block.

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Yes, it didn't work unfortunately.

smial1966 said:

"I am sorry but I can not divulge how the CAD Ground Control box works. I have spent over 2 years working on the design and it is of no benefit to CAD to just give away technology gained from all that hard work (and substantial money invested) to my competitors.

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Please post your impressions when you receive your unit. The Ground Control box looks promising.
 
The Entreq Olympus is very good,  but I'm not a fan of the tiered Entreq approach with their grounding cables to get you to spend more money.
 
I always felt the ground box should come with a good grounding cable.
 
In fact, I run Audio Sensibility grounding cables and they sound better than the Entreq ones I've tried (Apollo).

Went back to the server and I can definitely say files on my server don't have the musical flow and immersion of CD playback.
 
Even with 24-bit studio masters. They're incredibly dynamic, detailed, and quiet, but I find myself getting twitchy and changing tracks all of the time instead of just drifting away with the music with CD playback.
 
Same DAC and cabling feeding both transports.
 
The Beeswax fuse in my DAC is incredibly organic sounding though. What an unbelievable upgrade.

vert said:

  Went back to the server and I can definitely say files on my server don't have the musical flow and immersion of CD playback.

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 What is this magic  CD Player  that you use ? 

bmichels said:

   What is this magic  CD Player  that you use ? 

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The magic is in the Exemplar eXeption DAC with an Audio Magic Beeswax fuse.
 
I use a lowly Cambridge Audio 351c as a cd transport. Though the power cord I'm using for it costs way more than it does. 

Are you able to share some details - e.g. chipset, inputs/outputs, files supported, price etc - of the eXeption DAC with us? As the Exemplar Audio website doesn't have any specific info on this DAC, just 'Details coming soon' beneath a photo of it.
 
Thanks.  
 
Quote:

vert said:

   
The magic is in the Exemplar eXeption DAC with an Audio Magic Beeswax fuse.
 
I use a lowly Cambridge Audio 351c as a cd transport. Though the power cord I'm using for it costs way more than it does. 

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smial1966 said:

 

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From the designer - "It has a digital board using the CS 8416 digital receiver chip and the CS 4398 DAC chip. The digital board has been upgraded with proprietary shunt regulators. The digital board feeds into an Exemplar Audio tube analog board with individually shunt regulated tube stages and Urushi output caps."
 
The magic is in the tube analog output stage that Exemplar uses.

Many thanks for the useful info. Are you able to comment on the price? Even to the nearest thousand dollars would be indicative of cost.

vert said:

From the designer - "It has a digital board using the CS 8416 digital receiver chip and the CS 4398 DAC chip. The digital board has been upgraded with proprietary shunt regulators. The digital board feeds into an Exemplar Audio tube analog board with individually shunt regulated tube stages and Urushi output caps."

The magic is in the tube analog output stage that Exemplar uses.

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