DIY Ground Box Thread

[cdacosta]

Another successful upgrade. This time with neodymium magnets to my exterior power mains that travel into the electrical meter. The north face of the magnet is facing away from meter, face down, and south face is touching the meter. In electroculture and germinating, the south face should be facing upwards towards the seeds. I purchased 8 1inch (25.4mm) diameter magnets from my local hobby supple store for about $21 for four magnets. These magnets I placed at the entry point of the mains into the meter. I did not think I could improve the power to the entire house, but this did it. Music got more dynamic, louder, noticeably louder and the picture quality of the television improved slightly. But whats nice is that ever audio/video device in the house got an upgrade.

I also believe, and this is my subjective opinion, that the crystal grounding boxes we are building have medical benefits. I've been researching "earthing" and what it is. I'll post a link to a documentary. There is much discussion about connecting your body to an outdoor grounding rod but nobody has looked into grounding boxes as a replacement to earth ground. Not everybody lives with a backyard and access to earth ground. A good way to test these boxes is to connect a conductive fabric, or tape or screen from under a bed sheet to the grounding box. Unplug all other devices because for obvious safety reasons of electrocution. And do not plug your grounding into houses safety earth ground, those ground safety wires can become energized. One day an electrician pointed out a downed power line on the ground. He explained that even the wire is touching the ground you can become a circuit for that wire if you step over it, the electricity will travel upwards and through you if both feet are touching the ground and the wire runs between your feet. So I don't want to physically touch the safety ground of the house. One could test the grounding box on a pet or new born infant, and monitor how they sleep or one yourself and see how you feel (back pain, arthritis, etc). So as long as nothing else is plugged into the box except for the bed and the box is NOT plugged into house AC outlet.

Just tried a simple 1" squared (no idea what kind) magnet at the breaker panel, affixed next to the main audio system breaker. Does change what is heard. Was slight but obvious when trying to A/B for about 40 mins with and without. I have Neodymium magnets but have no desire to search through boxes for them. Will just pick some up at Home Depot when I pick up lunch today and experiment more.

I have been listening and trying to figure out what the difference is, because there is obviously a difference. The difference kind of feels like if I was to swap out say a set of tubes on a amp. Without the magnet sounds a bit more musical. With the magnet the presentation sounds a bit more precise with a bit tighter but less impactful bass. By precise I mean delineation of edges of notes/sounds a tiny bit clearer. Will post if I find anything interesting. Cool find @diystereo! Do not remember ever trying this before.

​

 

[kenincalgary]

Just tried a simple 1" squared (no idea what kind) magnet at the breaker panel, affixed next to the main audio system breaker. Does change what is heard. Was slight but obvious when trying to A/B for about 40 mins with and without. I have Neodymium magnets but have no desire to search through boxes for them. Will just pick some up at Home Depot when I pick up lunch today and experiment more.

I have been listening and trying to figure out what the difference is, because there is obviously a difference. The difference kind of feels like if I was to swap out say a set of tubes on a amp. Without the magnet sounds a bit more musical. With the magnet the presentation sounds a bit more precise with a bit tighter but less impactful bass. By precise I mean delineation of edges of notes/sounds a tiny bit clearer. Will post if I find anything interesting. Cool find @diystereo! Do not remember ever trying this before.

​

Great tweak diystereo, the magnets I used are tiny but very powerful, they were rescued from Philips Sonicare toothbrush heads before they changed the design.

Similar to cdacosta's experience I hear better definition, in my case bass impact doesn't seem diminished but I'll know more after another comparison.

 

[cdacosta]

Great tweak diystereo, the magnets I used are tiny but very powerful, they were rescued from Philips Sonicare toothbrush heads before they changed the design.

Similar to cdacosta's experience I hear better definition, in my case bass impact doesn't seem diminished but I'll know more after another comparison.

I love my Sonicare toothbrush! Never thought of keeping the magnets from the heads.

 

[Wladimir]

I each 2.0mm wire, there should be 19 bundles with each bundle containing 0.2mm x 7 conductors.

Just to note, when I separate the bundles and strands, I will in some bundles separate all the 0.2mm strands. Some bundles I will separate into 6 smaller bundles and so forth. The reason I do this is 1) the best sounding cable is multiple thickness stranded conductors, 2) This is the most time consuming part of the build.

Chris you're mixing two different cable architectures here. There are two main types: 19 core and 49 core versions.
In that 19 core, there are no bundles, just straight 19 wires, no bundling, just twisting altogether.
And within the 49 core, there are 7 bundles with 7 cores each = 49 wires. This one is now only available at 2,5mm² and bigger, the 2mm² is apparently out of market.

 

[diystereo]

I have been listening and trying to figure out what the difference is, because there is obviously a difference. The difference kind of feels like if I was to swap out say a set of tubes on a amp. Without the magnet sounds a bit more musical. With the magnet the presentation sounds a bit more precise with a bit tighter but less impactful bass. By precise I mean delineation of edges of notes/sounds a tiny bit clearer. Will post if I find anything interesting. Cool find @diystereo! Do not remember ever trying this before.

I was a bit surprised by it as well. Really easy to implement. I also placed a couple magnets, smaller, on the side of the meter box. I held the magnet and moved it up and down the meter's side and where I felt the strongest pull is where I left the magnet, south side facing meter, north face facing away.

These magnets are powerful enough to reveal which rocks in the backyard have magnetic properties and which do not. The ones that are smooth, darker, I think they are granite maybe, do attract the magnet. The ones that are more red/brown volcanic looking do not attract a magnet. I never thought about using backyard rocks for sensitive electronics but that could a possibility. Using rocks as base to dacs/pcb board.

 

[cdacosta]

Chris you're mixing two different cable architectures here. There are two main types: 19 core and 49 core versions.
In that 19 core, there are no bundles, just straight 19 wires, no bundling, just twisting altogether.
And within the 49 core, there are 7 bundles with 7 cores each = 49 wires. This one is now only available at 2,5mm² and bigger, the 2mm² is apparently out of market.

I have never seen this wire with 19 solid core. But I think you are correct about the 7 bundles of 7 core per bundle. Oops, just checked the actual wire. The recent order I received was for 10m of 2.0mm (14ga.) and it appears to be the 7 bundles of 7 core per bundle.

 

[cdacosta]

Just purchased these magnets ($41 inc. tax) to experiment with from Home Depot. Interested to see how much size, quantity and spacing changes the effect in different places.

 

[kenincalgary]

The magnets I have are really powerful and take a bit of effort to remove especially since I used 11 if them. After a few back and forth comparisons it was evident that the cleaner edges came at the expense of losing some of the subtle spatial details. I reduced the number from 11 to 4 which seems to be a good middle ground, will have to do more testing.

 

[cdacosta]

The magnets I have are really powerful and take a bit of effort to remove especially since I used 11 if them. After a few back and forth comparisons it was evident that the cleaner edges came at the expense of losing some of the subtle spatial details. I reduced the number from 11 to 4 which seems to be a good middle ground, will have to do more testing.

In that previous pic of the magnets I picked up today, the black ones are ceramic. It appears to me that the stronger the magnet the better this tweak works. I have so far found:

* Use Neodymium magnets, much stronger than ceramic.
* at the breaker panel, right next to the breaker works well.
* Shocking to me since I did not notice this previously, maybe I was using too weak of a magnet. Stacked on top of the GB will effect lower to mid bass frequencies. Makes the bass more solid and punchy, almost bit faster. Make sure the side of the magnet that is facing the ground box has the most magnetism. Can be placed on the side also for a slightly different effect. Same with placed right on top of where the ground cable enters the ground box.
* With Neodymium magnets at the panel and on top of 3 GB makes the presentation "feel" more liquid or fluid. It is not PRaT, cannot put my finger on why or what it is doing.

Will order more Neodymium magnets to see what else is possible.

 

[Ghoostknight]

if you guys want the "strongest" magnets

neodym magnets are classified between N40 and N52 ..... N52 being the strongest type, tho you dont find this classification everywhere, usually they are quite a bit more expensive with N52 classification

of course size matters too, a 10x10x10mm magnet with N40 is probably still stronger than a 5x5x5mm with N52...



i bought now everything for some small 50% scale "primer cubes"
5x 3d printer pieces 50% scale for 5x5x5mm magnets - 45 euro - if you want 100% scale primer cubes you pay around 40-50 euro per piece
200x 5x5x5mm (not N52!) - 15 euro .... 100 pieces N52 cost around 30 euro
motor, pwm controller, laser RPM meter - 12 euro on aliexpress, have to try this stuff out, somewhat unsure if the motor can handle the weight


imo even the small version with "weaker" magnets will make a noticable difference, it still has 89 pieces 5x5x5mm magnets but we will see i soon report back on this

 

[kenincalgary]

The magnet experiment this afternoon was fun and interesting, I left 4 on the meter and was happy with the incremental uplift.

Five hours later I sat down for a listen and was stunned by what I heard. I've been listening for an hour in disbelief looking for this afternoon's system but it's long gone.

It's now much more in your face (in a good way), more solid presence right there in front of you, and PRAT exponientiated. I didn't expect the "burn in time" and certainly not this big a level up. I was very happy about the last 2 ground boxes, but this is bigger! Well done diystereo!

Going back to listening now...

 

[cdacosta]

The magnet experiment this afternoon was fun and interesting, I left 4 on the meter and was happy with the incremental uplift.

Five hours later I sat down for a listen and was stunned by what I heard. I've been listening for an hour in disbelief looking for this afternoon's system but it's long gone.

It's now much more in your face (in a good way), more solid presence right there in front of you, and PRAT exponientiated. I didn't expect the "burn in time" and certainly not this big a level up. I was very happy about the last 2 ground boxes, but this is bigger! Well done diystereo!

Going back to listening now...

Just ordered thirty 20mm diameter Neodymium magnets to experiment with. Try placing the magnets stacked next to the AC outlet that your system components are plugged into. That liquid or more fluid presentation I mentioned earlier, just got more of it. All of my outlets and AC conditioner housings are non-magnetic, so will have to come up with a way to secure the magnets in place. I want to know why this works? I do not remember ever getting the same effects before when messing around with magnets.

Audio tweakers unite! LOL

 

[kenincalgary]

I'll be trying those locations soon, just need to get my head around this one.

 

[Ghoostknight]

i just tried magnets on the incoming earth-cable to our house

i should have made pictures but imagine following
1. (black) earth cable going trough the wall
2. going to a box, beside it is the earth stake, which the box also connects to, just like the breakerbox and a few other cables
3. before going out of the box to our breaker box where meter and fuses are


So i tried

1. magnets around the (black) earth cable
- very powerful effect imo (honestly too much, but maybe i need to try around with magnet/pole placement) but i think it has its pro and cons to the sound...
imo "immersive" is the best description

2. magnets on the earth stake (ours is magnetic, so magnets stick), in my case its some kind of thick copper-looking (2cm diameter or so) solidcore wire going into the ground
- its around 20-50% the strength as the previous tweak
actually the first tweak where i thought i could describe it as "sweeter sounding" with a touch of immersive-ness like the tweak before, also worth a shot

 

[joscho]

Another successful upgrade. This time with neodymium magnets to my exterior power mains that travel into the electrical meter. The north face of the magnet is facing away from meter, face down, and south face is touching the meter. In electroculture and germinating, the south face should be facing upwards towards the seeds. I purchased 8 1inch (25.4mm) diameter magnets from my local hobby supple store for about $21 for four magnets. These magnets I placed at the entry point of the mains into the meter. I did not think I could improve the power to the entire house, but this did it. Music got more dynamic, louder, noticeably louder and the picture quality of the television improved slightly. But whats nice is that ever audio/video device in the house got an upgrade.

I also believe, and this is my subjective opinion, that the crystal grounding boxes we are building have medical benefits. I've been researching "earthing" and what it is. I'll post a link to a documentary. There is much discussion about connecting your body to an outdoor grounding rod but nobody has looked into grounding boxes as a replacement to earth ground. Not everybody lives with a backyard and access to earth ground. A good way to test these boxes is to connect a conductive fabric, or tape or screen from under a bed sheet to the grounding box. Unplug all other devices because for obvious safety reasons of electrocution. And do not plug your grounding into houses safety earth ground, those ground safety wires can become energized. One day an electrician pointed out a downed power line on the ground. He explained that even the wire is touching the ground you can become a circuit for that wire if you step over it, the electricity will travel upwards and through you if both feet are touching the ground and the wire runs between your feet. So I don't want to physically touch the safety ground of the house. One could test the grounding box on a pet or new born infant, and monitor how they sleep or one yourself and see how you feel (back pain, arthritis, etc). So as long as nothing else is plugged into the box except for the bed and the box is NOT plugged into house AC outlet.

Thank you very much for this tip. Have you also experimented with reversed polarity?