[dougms3]

LOL yesterday ordered 2 more wood boxes so I can experiment some more. Want to see if filtering AC ground within different areas in the system or at a power cord will affect system performance.

Do you think a bamboo box might offer something more vs pine sonically?

Curious if the choice of wood used for the box would have an effect on the grounding box.

 

[cdacosta]

Do you think a bamboo box might offer something more vs pine sonically?

Curious if the choice of wood used for the box would have an effect on the grounding box.

I want to say yes choice of wood may make a difference, but I have not tried that yet. Until I buy another place and set a wood shop back up it is very hard to try different woods. But I think the density and thickness of wood would be more important than type of wood. I am thinking this because if footers make a difference, it means the device is sensitive to micro vibration. Another way to look at it is...

* Just running cable from a bag of the ingredient mix works well
* Placing mix inside a wood enclosure with the cable running directly into the mix is slightly better
* Footers will increase performance
* Cable (wire and connection to component) is 35%+ the performance. Poor quality wire or lousy connection will degrade performance dramatically. Cannot stress this enough.

 

[cdacosta]

Which wire type and gauge would you recommend for these ground boxes? For DIY termination.

Most balanced and natural sounding to me is as pure as possible stranded copper as you can get. Multiple gauges are better and thinner the wire gauges in the bundle of stranded wire the better. Thin Teflon jacket material/dielectric (like the wire below). As much air as possible for dielectric is even better but very hard to get this right or DIY this. Pure 5N or better silver stranded if you want a more top end focus but will not sound as natural as pure copper.

14 gauge as a minimum, for a good more neutral frequency balance. If you want a slightly warmer presentation or more punch and slam in the mid bass frequencies and below try 12ga to 11ga. This is my preference but your tastes and system will determine what you prefer. You will have to experiment.

I really like this wire I have been using from Aliexpress. Look at the posts I made on this wire for ground cable usage on page 178 of this thread: post #s: 2658, 2659 and 2666. Very inexpensive and sound very good. Takes a good 3 days or so for the wire to settle in once installed. The posts will answer your questions. I would also suggest if on a budget using the clone Furutech CF-102(R) solderless RCA connectors sold on Aliexpress. I do not recommend soldering if at all possible.

6N OCC stranded wire link (get the 2 square for 14ga.):
https://www.aliexpress.us/item/2255...2GDWRex&gatewayAdapt=glo2usa&_randl_shipto=US

 

[bodiebill2]

Most balanced and natural sounding to me is as pure as possible stranded copper as you can get. Multiple gauges are better and thinner the wire gauges in the bundle of stranded wire the better. Thin Teflon jacket material/dielectric (like the wire below). As much air as possible for dielectric is even better but very hard to get this right or DIY this. Pure 5N or better silver stranded if you want a more top end focus but will not sound as natural as pure copper.

14 gauge as a minimum, for a good more neutral frequency balance. If you want a slightly warmer presentation or more punch and slam in the mid bass frequencies and below try 12ga to 11ga. This is my preference but your tastes and system will determine what you prefer. You will have to experiment.

I really like this wire I have been using from Aliexpress. Look at the posts I made on this wire for ground cable usage on page 178 of this thread: post #s: 2658, 2659 and 2666. Very inexpensive and sound very good. Takes a good 3 days or so for the wire to settle in once installed. The posts will answer your questions. I would also suggest if on a budget using the clone Furutech CF-102(R) solderless RCA connectors sold on Aliexpress. I do not recommend soldering if at all possible.

6N OCC stranded wire link (get the 2 square for 14ga.):
https://www.aliexpress.us/item/2255...2GDWRex&gatewayAdapt=glo2usa&_randl_shipto=US

Thanks, sorry I missed your previous posts. Great info. I will act on it

 

[Jake2]

I do not recommend soldering if at all possible.

Why is that ad a matter of interest ? Difficulty of doing so well with heavy wire guage or simply because you’ve found solderless connections sound better?

Great info by the way, appreciate you sharing your extensive experience here.

 

[Flamex]

A new fuse challenger:

https://ja.aliexpress.com/item/1005...00025230113136!sea&curPageLogUid=BA5p8x9PjzAO

 

[dougms3]

A new fuse challenger:

https://ja.aliexpress.com/item/1005003327100402.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.29.7e9764b0ZfAVwS&algo_pvid=38997ee8-baca-4c51-a1e1-cc4fa6d64b5b&algo_exp_id=38997ee8-baca-4c51-a1e1-cc4fa6d64b5b-14&pdp_ext_f={"sku_id":"12000025230113136"}&pdp_npi=2@dis!USD!85.23!57.1!!!!!@212249c216743935165187923d0672!12000025230113136!sea&curPageLogUid=BA5p8x9PjzAO

Have you tried it?

I want to upgrade the fuse for my master clock and I may try this one.

 

[Flamex]

No, I haven't tried, just found it. They try to copy the big brands with the colors.

 

[bodiebill2]

I just dipped my toes onto grounding with some small grounding tubes/cylinders with good success in a variety of combinations. See below posts on the U18 thread which I should've posted here instead I realise.

Interestingly my LHY OCK-1 clock was one of only two devices I didn't get benefits from grounding, at least using these modest little boxes that weigh ~50 grams. It certainly changed the sound but ultimately not to my liking. The other was the LHY SW-8 switch but that may well be connection quality related.

Am now a grounding convert so will order some QA premium boxes to try, including a take 2 with the OCK-1.

Just to add a data point:
Using the two Quartz ground boxes, after first connecting them to the Mutec clock (that feeds 4 devices) and the DAC, I tried them with the preamp and the DAC. The amazing positive effect with the former setup is much more apparent -- so I will keep one attached to the Mutec!

Actually I am now splitting one ground cable into two that connect to both analogue RCA outputs of the DAC. (These are otherwise unused as I use its balanced outputs.)

 

[cdacosta]

Why is that ad a matter of interest ? Difficulty of doing so well with heavy wire guage or simply because you’ve found solderless connections sound better?

Great info by the way, appreciate you sharing your extensive experience here.

Sounds better without solder. Purer connection.

 

[xAndrex]

Hi I was considering getting a 2 pin cable from aliexpress at a reasonable price. Do you have any advice?

 

[LocalMotion]

Anyone recommend best quality Furutech NCF IEC connectors on Ali? I need a 20a C19 along with the standard male plug.

 

[dougms3]

Hi I was considering getting a 2 pin cable from aliexpress at a reasonable price. Do you have any advice?

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/low...m_medium=email&utm_source=thread_forum_macros

This is the thread you're probably looking for.

 

[dougms3]

Anyone recommend best quality Furutech NCF IEC connectors on Ali? I need a 20a C19 along with the standard male plug.

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256...9388!sh&gatewayAdapt=glo2usa&_randl_shipto=US

Maybe this store?

I bought the knockoff fi-50 ncf ac and iec from him and they are excellent quality. The connectors sound better than the audiocrast knockoff version.

 

[DecentLevi]

Initial impression is that I like this Aliexpress 6N OCC Single Crystal stranded copper wire. The finished cable ends up being 1.5m, 14ga. x 2= 11 total AWG. Compared to the Neotech mid frequencies and up is very similar. The mid bass and down the Aliexpress wire running dual 14ga. is much more impactful than Neotech 12ga. 6N UPOCC Single Crystal stranded copper wire. Sub bass goes deeper with the Aliexpress 11ga. The Aliexpress dual 14ga. has approx. 3x the strands as the Neotech 12ga. So far adding the additional 3.4kg of Magnetite to the second analog output signal sounds even better than before. Very eager to hear what it sounds like in a few days after it all settles in and Nano Liquid is broken in. Furutech Nano Liquid is used to treat the following:

* wire end that goes into Furutech RCA connector.
* DAC RCA negative contact.
* Furutech RCA connector ground contact for wire and negative contact that mates with DAC RCA jack.

After it all settles in, if I still feel the same way about the performance, I will wire it directly to the Magnetite. Then play with the mix. Still looking forward to adding the Tungsten that is on its way to me.

Read your post about that multi-strand high quality copper wire for grounding boxes. I'm frankly surprised you even went for another cable, remembering your exceptional praise for the previous thicker gray cable you were using and reasons why it was the best choice. Any words on a comparison between those two when used for grounding boxes? But this newer copper cable is not shielded, so have you experimented with any external shielding? You probably noticed from before I bought external woven tinned shielding for my grounding box cable, and had great results, albeit I got a size too large. Also did you happen to compare one versus two wires for the grounding cable?