DIY Ground Box Thread

[DecentLevi]

After subpar results shielding a premade grounding box partially, thought I'd give a go a fully shielding a DIY grounding box.

Initial impressions: Quite positive. Very resolving and extended on both sides, but seems to add a bit on the highs.


I did this assuming a metalic casing would work better on my tourmaline, shungite etc. box rather than the more magnetic magnetite etc. boxes. It was a fair bit of work to get this all covered will have to let this settle in a while before going all in with the others. I've also got this incoming to try on the other boxes, woven in true fashion of the faraday concept rather than solid or permanent solutions.

 

[bodiebill2]

Will work. IMHO not optimal because the solder degrades performance.

I may impermanently re-terminate with one of these:

My streamer, by the way, an Afterdark Rosanna Diretta network bridge, has a grounding post that only takes bare wire.

 

[cdacosta]

After subpar results shielding a premade grounding box partially, thought I'd give a go a fully shielding a DIY grounding box.

Initial impressions: Quite positive. Very resolving and extended on both sides, but seems to add a bit on the highs.


I did this assuming a metalic casing would work better on my tourmaline, shungite etc. box rather than the more magnetic magnetite etc. boxes. It was a fair bit of work to get this all covered will have to let this settle in a while before going all in with the others. I've also got this incoming to try on the other boxes, woven in true fashion of the faraday concept rather than solid or permanent solutions.

I tried the copper shielding, inside and outside of the enclosure. Did not like what I heard. Will be interesting to know what you find with this woven material.

As an aside, I recently tried using auto sound dampening material. There is a micro vibration in these ground boxes, can be felt while system is playing. The vibration is not caused by an external force, this is a headphone system. I was wondering what would happen by dampening the enclosures. The material I purchased is the thinner version to dynamat, which has an aluminum flashing. Need more experimenting, but if placed at the bottom only does the shielding not cause a compression effect. Bass is deeper and stronger, but is not as detailed, tight and fast as without this material. WIll experiment more when I have time. This effect was the same no matter which box I tried it on. Did not matter which component the box was installed at. I tried it on 4 different boxes installed at 3 different components. The effect was universal. I am still amazed how sensitive these devices are with its construction, especially since they are not in the signal path.

 

[Jake2]

As an aside, I recently tried using auto sound dampening material. There is a micro vibration in these ground boxes, can be felt while system is playing. The vibration is not caused by an external force, this is a headphone system. I was wondering what would happen by dampening the enclosures. The material I purchased is the thinner version to dynamat, which has an aluminum flashing. Need more experimenting, but if placed at the bottom only does the shielding not cause a compression effect. Bass is deeper and stronger, but is not as detailed, tight and fast as without this material. WIll experiment more when I have time. This effect was the same no matter which box I tried it on. Did not matter which component the box was installed at. I tried it on 4 different boxes installed at 3 different components. The effect was universal. I am still amazed how sensitive these devices are with its construction, especially since they are not in the signal path.

The sensitivity of ground boxes boxes to vibration damping corresponds to my experience. An evening last week before I headed out of town I tried placing my pre-made 2kg QA boxes on sheets of the 2mm thick fo.Q SH-22K damping material. The baseline I compared to was each box sitting on a sheet of anti-slip rubberised foam mesh about 3mm thick that you get from homeware or hardware stores to line drawers etc.

I was taken aback by the effect, which was nuch greater than I anticipated (I mean, I expected maybe a subtle effect, relatively speaking) albeit varying somewhat depending on the underlying substrate each box was sitting on (wood stand, wooden floor, glass rack). At its most pronounced, for the box I had on a wooden stand, I don't think it would be an exaggeration to say it doubled the effect of the ground box. It was like I'd not truly heard much of the potential of the ground box until then. All the usual positive aspects improved (less glare, more soundstage space, greater dynamics) I can't say I noticed any negatives.

I did some experimentation with adding additional sheets below and/or on top of the boxes. This had a worthwhile additive effect of say a further 30-50% improvement, depending on the box.

I should clarify the size of the sheets used were a mix of full uncut A5 sheets to A6 & A7 (halved then halved again, on the long axis each time). A7 is 7.4 x 10.5 cm or 2.9 x 4.1 inches, with A6 10.5 x 14.8 cm or 4.1 x 5.8 inches. A6 is a better fit underneath the 10x10cm QA boxes which rest on their side walls not the base sheet which is slightly recessed.

This was just prelim impressions from one evening, however the effect was sufficiently strong that late that night I found myself placing an order for yet more SH-22K even though shipping from Europe is expensive. I keep having to rob Peter to pay Paul when testing this stuff as it is/was already all in use in other components.

To be continued on my return...

 

[cdacosta]

The sensitivity of ground boxes boxes to vibration damping corresponds to my experience. An evening last week before I headed out of town I tried placing my pre-made 2kg QA boxes on sheets of the 2mm thick fo.Q SH-22K damping material. The baseline I compared to was each box sitting on a sheet of anti-slip rubberised foam mesh about 3mm thick that you get from homeware or hardware stores to line drawers etc.

I was taken aback by the effect, which was nuch greater than I anticipated (I mean, I expected maybe a subtle effect, relatively speaking) albeit varying somewhat depending on the underlying substrate each box was sitting on (wood stand, wooden floor, glass rack). At its most pronounced, for the box I had on a wooden stand, I don't think it would be an exaggeration to say it doubled the effect of the ground box. It was like I'd not truly heard much of the potential of the ground box until then. All the usual positive aspects improved (less glare, more soundstage space, greater dynamics) I can't say I noticed any negatives.

I did some experimentation with adding additional sheets below and/or on top of the boxes. This had a worthwhile additive effect of say a further 30-50% improvement, depending on the box.

I should clarify the size of the sheets used were a mix of full uncut A5 sheets to A6 & A7 (halved then halved again, on the long axis each time). A7 is 7.4 x 10.5 cm or 2.9 x 4.1 inches, with A6 10.5 x 14.8 cm or 4.1 x 5.8 inches. A6 is a better fit underneath the 10x10cm QA boxes which rest on their side walls not the base sheet which is slightly recessed.

This was just prelim impressions from one evening, however the effect was sufficiently strong that late that night I found myself placing an order for yet more SH-22K even though shipping from Europe is expensive. I keep having to rob Peter to pay Paul when testing this stuff as it is/was already all in use in other components.

To be continued on my return...

I am starting to understand why decoupling footers vs coupling work better with ground boxes. I also think (because I am not sure) that the reason why shielding negatively affect the Sonics is because of internal reflection due to the shielding.

 

[Jake2]

I am starting to understand why decoupling footers vs coupling work better with ground boxes. I also think (because I am not sure) that the reason why shielding negatively affect the Sonics is because of internal reflection due to the shielding.

My working theory, with fo.Q at least, is its effect with my ground boxes is due to its dissipation of internal micro-vibrations from materials in the box increasing or at least quickly restoring/maintaining their absorptive capacity. I note fo.Q used layers of similar material 'ZeroBump' in their Modrate brand ground box in between the stacked copper plates of its design, suggesting an intended dissipative role there. Their ground box product blurb describes it as 'vibration damping rubber'. In that context I'm not sure it was either coupling nor decoupling per se.

 

[Cornan]

Nice to see some "grounding box tweaks"around. Enjoying to to read about your progress here. Been there done that many years ago. My personal take on their advantages is mainly on cable shielding, chassi ground, static charges and DC leakage currents.
The better isolation you will achieve in your setup the less importance will the grounding boxes bring to the table. I still use two of them for anti-static purposes for my vinyl rig and as DC leakage current shunt/filtering (connected to negative terminal of PSU output) for the router LPSU. I also had previously great success connecting the grounding boxes to "GND screw terminals" at various network switches. Just my ten cents.

 

[DecentLevi]

I tried the copper shielding, inside and outside of the enclosure. Did not like what I heard. Will be interesting to know what you find with this woven material.

As an aside, I recently tried using auto sound dampening material. There is a micro vibration in these ground boxes, can be felt while system is playing. The vibration is not caused by an external force, this is a headphone system. I was wondering what would happen by dampening the enclosures. The material I purchased is the thinner version to dynamat, which has an aluminum flashing. Need more experimenting, but if placed at the bottom only does the shielding not cause a compression effect. Bass is deeper and stronger, but is not as detailed, tight and fast as without this material. WIll experiment more when I have time. This effect was the same no matter which box I tried it on. Did not matter which component the box was installed at. I tried it on 4 different boxes installed at 3 different components. The effect was universal. I am still amazed how sensitive these devices are with its construction, especially since they are not in the signal path.

Yup, the jury is still out on copper shielding for ground boxes... I'm leaning towards a mistrial. The first time I heard it I was impressed, but not withstanding myriads of other tweaks including a ground box which I just switched minutes before from my AC power conditioner ground to a DC ground which I like the ladder better. And a while later that excellent sound I heard from the ground box copper shielding was determined to have been when I had EQ already reducing the treble by a few decibels; turned off the EQ and I noticed a little too much highs glare now, which was confirmed when I A-B'd with and without this copper grounding box. So Dynamat sheets had a good result inside the box under the mix foil side up and no downsides? That's interesting. Would like to see your results with full shielding internally with this dynamat. At that point you definitely wouldn't need any external shielding since it's got both a rubber-like polymer and aluminum. I definitely wouldn't try fo.Q SH-22K inside though because those are already extinct and rare.

The sensitivity of ground boxes boxes to vibration damping corresponds to my experience. An evening last week before I headed out of town I tried placing my pre-made 2kg QA boxes on sheets of the 2mm thick fo.Q SH-22K damping material. The baseline I compared to was each box sitting on a sheet of anti-slip rubberised foam mesh about 3mm thick that you get from homeware or hardware stores to line drawers etc.

I was taken aback by the effect, which was nuch greater than I anticipated (I mean, I expected maybe a subtle effect, relatively speaking) albeit varying somewhat depending on the underlying substrate each box was sitting on (wood stand, wooden floor, glass rack). At its most pronounced, for the box I had on a wooden stand, I don't think it would be an exaggeration to say it doubled the effect of the ground box. It was like I'd not truly heard much of the potential of the ground box until then. All the usual positive aspects improved (less glare, more soundstage space, greater dynamics) I can't say I noticed any negatives.

I did some experimentation with adding additional sheets below and/or on top of the boxes. This had a worthwhile additive effect of say a further 30-50% improvement, depending on the box.

I should clarify the size of the sheets used were a mix of full uncut A5 sheets to A6 & A7 (halved then halved again, on the long axis each time). A7 is 7.4 x 10.5 cm or 2.9 x 4.1 inches, with A6 10.5 x 14.8 cm or 4.1 x 5.8 inches. A6 is a better fit underneath the 10x10cm QA boxes which rest on their side walls not the base sheet which is slightly recessed.

This was just prelim impressions from one evening, however the effect was sufficiently strong that late that night I found myself placing an order for yet more SH-22K even though shipping from Europe is expensive. I keep having to rob Peter to pay Paul when testing this stuff as it is/was already all in use in other components.

To be continued on my return...

So you got excellent results with the fo.Q SH-22K under grounding boxes as footers? That's an interesting idea I should try that. I've already got black rubber half circle 3M footers that were recommended by CDA under mine and that's bar none perfect so far. I think those are referred to as coupling footers.

And it's worth repeating that IME there is really merit in the concept of putting all your grinding boxes on their own separate table; in my case small wooden coffee table size and with a anti-static ESD mat under them. It actually sounds better and more coherent as compared with the exact same setup but with grounding boxes spread out all over the place on the same table with your equipment.

 

[cdacosta]

So Dynamat sheets had a good result inside the box under the mix foil side up and no downsides?

Actually I placed the on the outside. At the bottom has the least negative effect. I need to experiment more. I have a couple of ideas. If anything pans out I will share it.

The silicone footers I suggested work well and are de-coupling footers.

 

[Ghoostknight]

im still questioning the whole shielding debate about grounding boxes, there is real threat of the grounding box acting like a antenna and proper grounding/shielding could negate/reduce this greatly

imo a good constructed grounding box needs to have shielding... there is no meaningful objective reason to not shield in my perspective unless the grounding box "needs" to act like a antenna to give a "better" effect

imo a good grounding box looks like this... multiple copper plates inside to get the most surface area and contact area with the minerals and preferably a seperate grounded case with no contact to the inside grounding, this should give the least antenna effect on devices and possibly the best mineral effect because of the big surface area
the grounding box cable should be also as short as possible

 

[Ghoostknight]

Initial impressions: Quite positive. Very resolving and extended on both sides, but seems to add a bit on the highs.

i made the expierence that you shouldnt be fooled by, well lets call them "EQ effects" (it sounds for example like more highs but frequency response stays the same)

with my flat-ish studio monitors i kinda made the expierence that more highs/bass usually sounds better not because i like it tilted, for example if we take highs ime if you change a cable and get subjectively more highs this is, as far i can tell, from the fact that the highs sound "cleaner" and therefore subjectively louder, this is also the case with bass (and mids, but harder to spot i would say)

you may still not like the effect but if you fineadjust afterwards with a nice eq curve it most of the times sound better then before if you go with the "louder thing"

dont get me wrong, excluding the eq afterwards you still can missmatch your components and tilt it completely to one side but specially this "more highs" effect was usually "cleaner highs" for me, you also specially notice this with some clean tones, distortion etc

 

[cdacosta]

im still questioning the whole shielding debate about grounding boxes, there is real threat of the grounding box acting like a antenna and proper grounding/shielding could negate/reduce this greatly

imo a good constructed grounding box needs to have shielding... there is no meaningful objective reason to not shield in my perspective unless the grounding box "needs" to act like a antenna to give a "better" effect

imo a good grounding box looks like this... multiple copper plates inside to get the most surface area and contact area with the minerals and preferably a seperate grounded case with no contact to the inside grounding, this should give the least antenna effect on devices and possibly the best mineral effect because of the big surface area
the grounding box cable should be also as short as possible

Well this is easy to test. I have been testing different shielding (inside and outside of enclosure), and interior copper plates attached directly to the conductors. Nothing so far sounds as good as without shielding and no interior copper plates. This is an ongoing project, still trying different ideas.

 

[Jake2]

im still questioning the whole shielding debate about grounding boxes, there is real threat of the grounding box acting like a antenna and proper grounding/shielding could negate/reduce this greatly

imo a good constructed grounding box needs to have shielding... there is no meaningful objective reason to not shield in my perspective unless the grounding box "needs" to act like a antenna to give a "better" effect

I reckon it is equally arguable a large surface area of copper shield on a ground box will make a ground box act more like an antenna than one without it. Assuming some level of conductivity between the copper shield and the box’s contents.

 

[cdacosta]

Here are some fairly quick thoughts on ground boxes. I am throwing these out there for food for thought. I read many theories, looked at designs, tried all the designs I could, read and followed what others have tried. Still not a believer until the first very rudimentary experiment. Then the rabbit hole I went and still on that journey. Off the top of my head, here is what I know that matters to get the most out of these ground boxes. All from experimenting, not from theories. Using my ears to tell me what cause and effect does to overall performance. I share the info I have and experiences hoping others will try and share what they find.

* Every aspect of the ground box build effects overall performance.
* Ground boxes can be extremely effective in lowering noise floor. They can be used to remove earth ground noise. But excel at tackling system circuit ground noise.
* CAD and Entreq (the leaders in this space) I think understand the use and design best.
* De-coupling works much better than coupling the enclosure to surface it is on. The better the footers are at decoupling and mitigating micro vibration the better.
* Connection to component and where it is installed make a big difference. Connecting to a component signal input or output is much more effective than to a component's chassis. If you want to filter earth ground, filter the power cord or at AC outlet, or where the power is delivered to the system (or component).
* The more parts of a system is filtered using ground boxes, the more noise is removed and the more one hears. The more refined and resolving a system gets. Of course if using a retail product like CAD or Entreq it gets quite pricey really quick.
* Cable (wire and connection) is 50% or more of the overall performance of the ground box. The cable can be used as a system tuning tool but using mineral mix to do that is a better way to do it. Cable itself should be tonally neutral, at least this is what I strive for.
* Volume of mineral matters. Enreq recommends that mineral weight be no less than 1/5 of the component being filtered. I believe them. You can string boxes to add more mass.
* I have found shielding of any sort, whether inside or outside the enclosure degrade performance.
* Most neutral wire used for cable... best is a high grade copper, high strand count 12ga to 10ga. Multi sized stranded is best. Silver in any form, I have found to not be tonally neutral and add artifacts or peaks and dips across the frequency spectrum. What I have not tried though is to first burn-in the wire using a cable cooker, this could make a huge difference with silver wire. If using silver, pure 5N or better sound WAY better than silver plated copper. High strand count sounds better than solid core or lower strands of lower gauge solid core. I found this out by trial and error. But noticed Entreq has changed their cables to higher strand count.
* Solderless connection sound better than soldered connection. I say sound instead of perform because solder tends to color what is heard.
* The different minerals used in a mix not only sound different, they can be used to tune a system. Different minerals will enhance different system attributes.
* Direct cable wire to mineral mix does yield a slightly better performing ground box vs using a binding post. The binding post allows for cable rolling and a wider use case.
* Many tweaks used for signal/line level cables and power cables not only do not work for ground box cables, they can easily degrade performance.

When I say "tune" I am referring to the ability to change tonal characteristics of what is heard from the system. When using the word "performance" I am referring to how well the ground box performs at removing noise or lowering of noise floor. With reference to performance I am also referring to not degrading what heard out the system. When noise floor is lowered, you hear more.

 

[cdacosta]

Finally got around to mod the Aliexpress Nordost Oden 2 SPDIF cables to have a ground box lead as part of the cable. It has been awhile since I built an interconnect cable and this one had to be completely rebuilt. I took a couple of before and an after pic. For those wondering, those clone WBT connectors are gold plated brass. I sanded the plating off so I can see the metal before throwing them away. The Furutech solderless clones have a copper base, the plating probably thin Rhodium. Does not sound like nickel or silver, more like a warm Rhodium. I have not used these connectors (only real) for line level interconnects until now. Will reserve judgement until after they get some burn in. Already has changed for the better in an hour or so and keeps improving, so we will see. Initial impression is good, but we will see LOL.

I will say that I really do like how all of the clone Furutech connectors fit and lock in place when installed. And they are dirt cheap compared to the real ones. The three connectors for this mod was $24 maybe. Real ones would run at least $325 - $350 with tax and shipping.

After taking the cables completely apart to examine the craftsmanship of build, I am not impressed. Yes the cables sound fairly good broken in, but there are many parts of the build at the connections that will negatively impact the sonic performance. The poor solder workmanship and hot glue specifically will negatively effect cable performance. All solder joints look very dull. So either they over heated the joint or used poor quality/wrong solder for the job. Last nit pick is the way they soldered the joint. There should be conductor contacting the connector metal surface. The way they did the solder joint is metal, then a lot of solder, then conductor.

I must of started typing this post over an hour ago. I have been doing a bunch of other things and listening. Even not burnt in, it sounds better than before. I really like this wire for this application. Vocals are stunning.