[Jake2]

Use the packing to hold the bottle. Won’t fall over this way.

Nice tip thanks, will do.

 

[PaulInWA]

I got the Quartz Acoustic ones based on a number of positive recommendations on other threads. Not to mention the buyer reviews.They make a big difference to my system especially when used with a better ground cable than the ones they come with, like the ones @cdacosta a recommends or the Grey Ghost silver ones I got last week.

I got the QAs before this DIY ground box thread took off, and in any case materials and even wooden boxes are unavailable down here in the antipodes so I have to import virtually everything which stops being cheap pretty fast .

https://quartzacoustic.com/shop/qa-premium-audio-ground-box-with-crocodile-clip-cable-included/

Edit - added one such review..

These grounding boxes are an exceptional value. I had a chance to bring the Quartz box over to a friend’s house to compare to another grounding box costing 10 times more. We attached it to a Briscati M12 and separately a Signature Rendu.

Not only was it as good as the box costing ten times more but it provided a more solid and deeper bass! The two were very easy to distinguish from each other.

Thanks. I've contacted them to find out how much shipping to the US would be.

 

[Jake2]

Thanks. I've contacted them to find out how much shipping to the US would be.

Yeah that's the catch, it's pricey, need to get 2 min to make it worthwhile. I got three.

 

[cdacosta]

Thanks. I've contacted them to find out how much shipping to the US would be.

I have not tried any of the Quartz Acoustic ground boxes, so cannot comment on the performance. I have tried several of their ground cables and IMHO they sound horrible. In my experience with passive ground boxes, the cable and installation location is 50% or more of the performance.

Unfortunately high performing retail offerings of ground cables can get very pricey. Alternative would be the DIY recipe I have offered in this thread. If coupled using Furutech Nano Liquid during construction and installation and utilizing the DIY GB Cable Enhancement Wrap the DIY 6N OCC copper cable is a stellar performer. The ground cable “is” as important as the box design itself when it comes to performance.

 

[cdacosta]

Thank you, that would be really helpful

I re-read the .pdf EDhaenens put together, which are from some of my posts on the different projects in this thread. Here is what jumps out at me off the top of my head regarding what is the most important to performance. In no particular order and with the understanding you want to learn how the different aspects of the build effect performance. If you just want to build a high performing ground box and have no desire to experiment, just do as I suggest in that .pdf and enjoy the music. If you think you may build several or more, I suggest you learn what the cause and effect is when changing the build.

In a previous post @EDhaenens eluded to a ground box tweaked/tuned to your system and taste will be hard to beat vs a one size fits all. No matter the price point. I can not properly judge this since I have not done a direct comparison to a multi-thousand dollar box. After building I will guess by now over 10 ground boxes, @EDhaenes learned that results can vary wildly based on how you tune and build the ground box.

I also do not know if you are installing to a $10K setup or $300K (ultra-Fi) setup. So my thoughts, comments or suggestions are geared around value to performance. So making many of these boxes are not too expensive.

* Footers matter: The Hudson HiFi .75" dome de-coupling footers offer the lowest price to performance value. At around $1 USD per footer, they perform about as good as the IsoAcoustics Mini Pucks which are priced about $20 per footer. If inclined I suggest you try different footers so you can "hear" live how coupling vs de-coupling footers effect what you hear through your system. Yes, with only one box installed at one component you can hear the changes you make.

* The Ground Cable matters more than you likely think: Since the ground box is a noise filtering device that "is not" in the signal path, one would think the cable should not matter much. I was surprised how much the cable mattered. The conductor metal, conductor purity, conductor sizes, dielectric material, connectors used (or not used), solder vs solderless. What I found did not matter as much was the length of wire. A .75 meter cable sounded the same to me as a 1.5 meter cable of the same build. The DIY cable build I offer is after spending $500+ in raw wire, wire I had on hand and months of nearly daily experimentation. The best practice for building a high performing ground cable is not the same as for an interconnect, digital or AC power cable. I do not consider myself an expert on cable building but have built hundreds of audio related cables in the last 25 years. I still think a higher performing cable can be built. But the cost to build and time required to experiment would be prohibitive in my opinion.

My goal was to build an affordable (to anyone) cable that offered a natural, musical presentation. One that did not color or add artifacts or smear the presentation. Cheap silver plating, certain dielectric material and solder will smear add weird balance to the presentation. At first the smearing may not be noticed, but is obvious when comparing to a cable like offered as a DIY build. Speaking of cable comparing or rolling...

* The connection to the mineral mix matters: A direct 10"+ bare leads into the mix does sound better than using a binding post. But the binding post allows for cable rolling and multiple installation options vs a fixed one. If using a binding post, use as pure a copper 5-way as you can afford. Also make sure the binding post is solderless. Solder will 100% degrade the performance. For reference the solders I tried are Mundorf Supreme, WBT Silver and Cardas Quad Eutectic using a temp controlled soldering station.

* The mineral mix matters: Only use natural Magnetite. The other minerals are to enhance and tune beyond what the Magnetite offers. When I say "tune" the other minerals each individually offer something different. In the .pdf, there is detail on filling, the mix and tuning using the different minerals.

* The installation matters: Where installed, how the connection is made from ground box to cable, cable to component all matters. Somewhere in the thread I listed just about all the possible installs of a passive ground box. Which include at components, AC ground, digital and analog cables and the modding to accommodate/work with a ground box filtering device. Also listed was how effective or system performance enhancing all the install locations are. Here is a quick summary (it is a partial list) and where I would recommend anyone install at first. From best to least effective:

BEST: Modding analog XLR balanced or Single ended interconnect. Installed from DAC to amp. This is system transformative.

2nd Best: DAC analog input or output stage.

3rd Best: DAC digital input stage or output stage. Depending on the DAC, one stage "may" work better than the other.

Many install options in between...

Absolute worst install location: Metal chassis of a component. Usually with an alligator clip to a bolt on the chassis.

The last thing I want to mention...

* Since the purity of connections matter: Furutech Nano Liquid as part of the cable build, and at connection points at the ground box and component "will" improve performance. This is not a must, but depending on how serious one is to build the best DIY as possible...

My DIY ground box offering in this thread was designed so that it also can be used to tune, or enhance certain frequencies or tonal balance of a system if one desires. This is accomplished by using the mineral mix. A little more of this mineral or that mineral will allow you to balance or tune while listening to the system, so you can dial it in. This is not possible with retail units.

 

[MattSPL]

Thank you for the excellent information

 

[Wladimir]

Hats off for your contribution @cdacosta.

Now I've been experimenting for over a week now with your other famous tweak - Rochelle salt on AC line. Here are my observations for all newcomers or anyone still in the process of tweaking. Probably all of this has been said before, but perhaps someone might still benefit.

This stuff is really powerful, it was hard to imagine that each installation would be heard, but it's true. My primary headphone setup benefits greatly DESPITE having a summit-fi power filtering / cables for all my setup & battery run streamer/endpoint. Interesting is that my living-room basic (or half-decent) stereo doesn't seem to benefit that much from this tweak, but my primary kingdom does tremendously. My hypothesis is that it's absorbing very high frequency radiation, 5GHz and up, because not so long ago I was having this kind of superbly detailed and magical sound, but something happened during the last past years and I wasn't able to get it back until now.

At the same time it's important to say that it's very easy to overcook it. IME, when attaching bags around 2 cm / little less than 1 inch from the conductor, my sweet spot for phase is around 0,4g and for ground around 50% of that (depends on how bassy you like your music ;] ). Obviously, the closer to the conductor, the harder is to hit the sweet spot.

It should be viewed as a long-term project to make it optimal. Even if you're excited, do just one at a time and listen to it for the changes in tonality and soundstage or details as mentioned by the author. Just 0,1g more than optimum and I lose most of the magic soundstage/atmosphere. Even 0,05g more on phase than optimum results in a too hot (upper) midrange, so the sweet spot is really in tight tolerances. But it's also tunable by the distance, every 2-3mm relocation results in noticeable difference.

My humble recommendations:
Get a very precise scale - precision down to 0,01g is helpful and will save you some time.
To be able to bear the added hotness of the RS on the sound (which is sooo seductive), one should neutralize as many metal resonances throughout the chain as possible. So IMO, well done resonance management is a must.

 

[jimbop54]

@cdacosta Do you have a recommendation for the solderless binding post?

 

[cdacosta]

Thank you for the excellent information

My pleasure. The DIY ground box is a fun and informative project. Hearing the cause and effect is very interesting.

 

[cdacosta]

Hats off for your contribution @cdacosta.

Now I've been experimenting for over a week now with your other famous tweak - Rochelle salt on AC line. Here are my observations for all newcomers or anyone still in the process of tweaking. Probably all of this has been said before, but perhaps someone might still benefit.

This stuff is really powerful, it was hard to imagine that each installation would be heard, but it's true. My primary headphone setup benefits greatly DESPITE having a summit-fi power filtering / cables for all my setup & battery run streamer/endpoint. Interesting is that my living-room basic (or half-decent) stereo doesn't seem to benefit that much from this tweak, but my primary kingdom does tremendously. My hypothesis is that it's absorbing very high frequency radiation, 5GHz and up, because not so long ago I was having this kind of superbly detailed and magical sound, but something happened during the last past years and I wasn't able to get it back until now.

At the same time it's important to say that it's very easy to overcook it. IME, when attaching bags around 2 cm / little less than 1 inch from the conductor, my sweet spot for phase is around 0,4g and for ground around 50% of that (depends on how bassy you like your music ;] ). Obviously, the closer to the conductor, the harder is to hit the sweet spot.

It should be viewed as a long-term project to make it optimal. Even if you're excited, do just one at a time and listen to it for the changes in tonality and soundstage or details as mentioned by the author. Just 0,1g more than optimum and I lose most of the magic soundstage/atmosphere. Even 0,05g more on phase than optimum results in a too hot (upper) midrange, so the sweet spot is really in tight tolerances. But it's also tunable by the distance, every 2-3mm relocation results in noticeable difference.

My humble recommendations:
Get a very precise scale - precision down to 0,01g is helpful and will save you some time.
To be able to bear the added hotness of the RS on the sound (which is sooo seductive), one should neutralize as many metal resonances throughout the chain as possible. So IMO, well done resonance management is a must.

Agreed and well said. Appreciate the feed back, should help others.

 

[cdacosta]

@cdacosta Do you have a recommendation for the solderless binding post?

The longer versions are easiest to work with. The shorter ones are for thinner walled chassis panel installs:

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/2255..._main.314.7d481802VxJs94&gatewayAdapt=glo2usa

Pure copper, longer no plating version:

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/2251832660044074.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.1.7b4222d4itEtFJ&algo_pvid=640a7408-8e03-409b-b6ed-374c46ac684d&algo_exp_id=640a7408-8e03-409b-b6ed-374c46ac684d-0&pdp_npi=4@dis!USD!46.51!46.51!!!46.51!46.51!@2103247417099993600432801ef618!66027902983!sea!US!2108204459!&curPageLogUid=G8UDNWrhiRq8&utparam-url=scene:search|query_from:

 

[cdacosta]

Hats off for your contribution @cdacosta.

Now I've been experimenting for over a week now with your other famous tweak - Rochelle salt on AC line. Here are my observations for all newcomers or anyone still in the process of tweaking. Probably all of this has been said before, but perhaps someone might still benefit.

This stuff is really powerful, it was hard to imagine that each installation would be heard, but it's true. My primary headphone setup benefits greatly DESPITE having a summit-fi power filtering / cables for all my setup & battery run streamer/endpoint. Interesting is that my living-room basic (or half-decent) stereo doesn't seem to benefit that much from this tweak, but my primary kingdom does tremendously. My hypothesis is that it's absorbing very high frequency radiation, 5GHz and up, because not so long ago I was having this kind of superbly detailed and magical sound, but something happened during the last past years and I wasn't able to get it back until now.

At the same time it's important to say that it's very easy to overcook it. IME, when attaching bags around 2 cm / little less than 1 inch from the conductor, my sweet spot for phase is around 0,4g and for ground around 50% of that (depends on how bassy you like your music ;] ). Obviously, the closer to the conductor, the harder is to hit the sweet spot.

It should be viewed as a long-term project to make it optimal. Even if you're excited, do just one at a time and listen to it for the changes in tonality and soundstage or details as mentioned by the author. Just 0,1g more than optimum and I lose most of the magic soundstage/atmosphere. Even 0,05g more on phase than optimum results in a too hot (upper) midrange, so the sweet spot is really in tight tolerances. But it's also tunable by the distance, every 2-3mm relocation results in noticeable difference.

My humble recommendations:
Get a very precise scale - precision down to 0,01g is helpful and will save you some time.
To be able to bear the added hotness of the RS on the sound (which is sooo seductive), one should neutralize as many metal resonances throughout the chain as possible. So IMO, well done resonance management is a must.

Another thought to dove-tail off what you wrote. The Rochelle salt AC line tweak teaches one just how sensitive high frequency noise on the AC line effects our sound systems.

Not sure about where you live, but HBN in small quantities is very inexpensive in the US. If you can get some, you may want to try/experiment with even smaller quantities in separate bags at the AC outlet or light switch plates. Small targeted usage of the HBN adds an analog to kind of tube-ish touch to the presentation. Easy to overdue, but is instantly audible what adding HBN does. Can increase musicality (and listener engagement) to the presentation. For the low cost of like $10 USD (for small quantity), well worth experimenting with.

 

[Wladimir]

In Europe, I see as a most plausible option at amazon.de -> 100g for €50 + shipping. I guess I could share with someone else, who is willing to take part
Or if anyone else knows about some other source, I'm all ear/eye.

 

[zanash]

Further to my grounding box project ....

as I 3d printed my box, Ive increase the volume by about 150%
Ive added copper plates as the contact points rather than the wire filaments.
the plastic bag holding the mineral mix has been replaced with a sheet of anti rfi/emi fabric thats laid in the box, with the copper vanes and mineral mic held within it.

the copper and the fabric are then connected as before to the rca socket ground.

the mineral mix proportions are as previously described but increase to fill the box.

I played a track ...then paused it. Added the new grounding box to the digital ground and press play....about 4 seconds !

" well knock me over with a feather " had to check to see if it was the same track !

so quantity of material and contact area play a big role.

Im getting more precise imaging with greater slam and oddly greater delicacy

 

[cdacosta]

In the last couple of days I have received emails asking about ground box installs and such. I looked back through the thread and found two posts that likely will be worth re-posting. I will copy and paste the posts, which will include a link to the posts. Should help someone newer to the concept of passive ground boxes and newer viewers to this thread. Also for those that are looking for a system upgrade without spending thousands, should seriously consider modding the main interconnect from DAC to amp so a ground box can be integrated. This mod and integrating a ground box here is system transformative. The mod is adding a 14ga. 6N OOC ground cable to each the left and right channel of the interconnects. The two ground cables terminate at one ground box. Filtering the output stage of the DAC and interconnect "drastically lowers" the noise floor of the system. The mod should upgrade a good performing interconnect to stellar.

Re-post from 8/23/2023 page 28:

Before going over ground box installs and how effective they were compared to each other, lets go over what I experienced after installing ground box(s). I think this might help others to figure out if a specific install is possibly good, or try installing at a different location. From the start of the project I was coming from the position of a system tweaker. As a hobbyist I am spending resources (money and time) with the objective to improve system performance, to whatever extent possible. I do not see improving a aspect of the system performance while degrading another part of the system as progress or improvement.

After twelve ground boxes and filtering just about every aspect of the system I have got a pretty good idea of best or at least very good practices for an install. First lets start with some general guidelines:

* Use a variety of music you know well to analyze system after installs. With a good install location, you should be able to hear an obvious difference almost right away, or at least within 10 mins or so. Over the next few days will refine but 10 mins in or so you should be able to get a pretty good idea what the install does for overall performance of the system.

* I will spend more time about install locations later. I will assume most will be like me, start with one to three boxes. As a rule of thumb I would start with DAC signal ground (can try analog and digital). Then if your system is internet based, coax ground at wall or router. I love the XLR balanced interconnect cable mod but not everyone can do this mod.

* If after install the difference heard is very slight, the install is not optimum. After removing noise from a component's signal stage (analog or digital), earth ground or cabling, the sonic performance of the system should be real obvious. Noise floor is being lowered, you should be "hearing more". The hearing more will start as improved micro resolution across the frequency band. Depending on how noisy the component(s) or your environment, the more you filter your system, the crazier the resolution is increased. As more noise is removed:

* more air around all sounds

* timbre improvement. This is incremental, the more noise is removed from the system the timbre just keeps getting better and better. An example would be hearing two drum sticks tapping each other. As more noise is removed, the wood coming into contact with each other sounds more and more like real wood being tapped together in front of you. Another example is cymbals will sound more and more real/live including decay detail.

* sound stage width, depth, height and a 360 degree immersion. All gets better and better as the noise is incrementally removed

* Macro and micro resolution is incrementally improved as noise is incrementally removed from the system. As an example, lets say you start with a acoustic guitar string being plucked. As resolution improves it goes like this: can hear the note --> can hear vibration from string being plucked more clearly --> can hear the pick or skin from finger strumming the string --> the edges of the sounds of all this is more and more obvious, with more air around the string vibrating, the pick, finger, nail strumming or scraping the string and a decay of the vibration of the note. Also how this note is more separated from the other notes and sounds. Extremely cool experience to say the least. Electric guitars sound stupid cool.

* As noise is removed bass tightens, becomes quicker, more micro resolution. Bass slam, how hard and fast is obvious. Also even though bass is hitting harder and faster, should not bleed, distort, mask or effect mid bass or higher frequencies. At least not in my system. Bass in my headphone system remind me of a mix of a REL sub with a hint of a JL Audio 10" home sub. I can feel the bass (usually across most of my body), it hits hard and is extremely detailed. Very impressive for a headphone system.

* later in the filtering I got to hear more of the acoustic environment. Like wall reflections, inside of drums, cavity of wood instruments like guitars, cellos, etc.

* As more noise is removed attack, decay and information layering is all improved.

* PRaT, musicality (how one is involuntarily grooving to the music) just gets better and better. I am not sure if it is because my mind understand better what I am hearing because of the amount of info or?

I think you all get the gist. The above is the reason why I have spent so much time or money on this ground box project. These devices have absolutely transformed my system to something I never knew possible. So the point is if a ground box install yields very little change, something is wrong. Assuming a decent ground box, either where or how the device is installed, or the cable. If you try an install and hear very little change, try a different location.