[Palyodgree]

All this Groundmaster talk got me curious and I have one coming now to hook up to my PSM136 and can't wait. Luckily, I live in a house with a yard, and will be installing the grounding rod. Fun times ahead. . .

In my neighborhood the odd home has a large granite boulder sitting in their front yard as a lawn ornament no doubt left over from excavation of foundation, I was lucky installing my grounding rod after a couple unsuccessful starts , it’s a bugger hitting rock just three feet down with trying to pull it back out though I did concider a grounding plate in the very beginning however I was able to get the rod down almost 6 feet I was satisfied with that .

 

[Wes S]

In my neighborhood the odd home has a large granite boulder sitting in their front yard as a lawn ornament no doubt left over from excavation of foundation, I was lucky installing my grounding rod after a couple unsuccessful starts , it’s a bugger hitting rock just three feet down with trying to pull it back out though I did concider a grounding plate in the very beginning however I was able to get the rod down almost 6 feet I was satisfied with that .

Fingers crossed I don't run into that, and luckily I don't see any boulders laying around. I live in Texas and it's quite flat where I am at with good old black dirt, so I am thinking it should hopefully be easy to get the rod down deep. We don't have any trees on the side of the yard where I plan to install the rod, so that's a plus as well.

 

[adeypoos]

I’ve had a Puritan PSM136 for a couple of years now and only have good things to say about it. The general sense of calmness and increased soundstage and separation are significant.

 

[Somatic]

Damn, why did this take me so long!

Was my reaction this arvo some 30 seconds after pressing play after finally getting around to hooking up the Ground-master to my PSM156, incl running cable outside, digging a <20cm deep trench in a section of sloped and scrubby lawn then laying in my 5cm wide x 0.8mm x 2m copper strip from AliX. Laying it was harder work than I anticipated with a few roots. Overall a bit of a bodge/temp job with it sitting pretty shallow in parts (say 5cm down, if that) due to roots and uneven ground. I also had to fold the last couple of feet of the copper strip back on itself due to space constraints. And the cable was just some old heavyish speaker cable I had lying around.



Anyway, with all those caveats out of the way, did the GM have much effect on my system’s sound?

Did it ever. I’d say at least as much positive impact again as adding in the PSM156 to begin with, possibly more TBH. Though I’m running from memory as it’s a PITA to AB the PSM itself with 6 components so I’ve not gotten around to it yet. Good thing is the GM is super easy to AB, just plug/unplug a single cable - the green GM banana plug terminated cable - into the green banana socket on the PSM156.

I should clarify the improvements I describe below are over and above the very positive effect of 3 x Quartz Acoustic premium signal grounding boxes I added to my system in Feb.

Observations - delta from connecting the GM:

• bass tightened up a lot, speedier and more impactful, weighty. Not subtle.
• midrange also tightened up, better focus with vocals beautifully textured, female vocals really sweet. A bit leaner in comparison to the PSM alone, but after a few ABs it became clear that sans-GM it was a bit loose so was artificially bloomed and warm.
• leading edges of transients more refined
• residual digititus glare in my system, already low after the QA boxes and recent ethernet chain tweaks, took another big hit
• soundstage did the usual thing I‘ve experienced with better signal grounding, but to another level again - better focus and precision, a calmer (I don’t want to say blacker) background, more ability to convey subtle nuances of an acoustic space.

Overall a satisfyingly more dynamic, refined and resolving presentation - the music is more alive and engaging with the GM in play, if a touch lighter/leaner in the midrange than I’m used to. I’m fast acclimatising though so now so when I switch back to sans-GM it feels quite warm and smooth, if flatter and less resolving, though still very listenable, possibly more forgiving of certain material. I guess the GM and the PSM circuit that feeds it may still benefit from some burn in.

So my provisional (though pretty high confidence) conclusion: at ~GBP/USD200-300 the GM brings remarkable bang-for-buck improvements and should be considered an essential part of any PSM setup I reckon. (Acknowledging apartment dwellers would need to use the GM City)

Methinks I will have to order an earth rod and heavyweight earth cable to ensure I do it properly, ideally with both the rod and copper strip in play.

Hmmm, I was thinking of getting this as well. So is there any way to install the ground rod for the entire house? Instead of having the benefits for only the room where the Puritan block resides ...

 

[Somatic]

Having lived in a big city condo for years I was never truly content with any of my stereo systems no matter what AC conditioner or regeneration I tried .We recently moved out of the city having purchased a 50 year old home using a Entech meter the AC noise was equal perhaps even worse then our condo.
I got word of the Puritan conditioners i placed an order for the 136 model with ground master drove a rod deep into the ground I was amazed how much noise was eliminated using the Entech meter . We had since had a total electrical upgrade from the mast to new service panel and throughout the home including dedicated lines to a couple rooms what a huge difference it made of course though I did find the Puritan 136 did effect my dac , Holo Audio May . Plugging the dac directly into a dedicated line then into the Puritan it blunted transients , I went back and forth from wall to conditioner and sure enough the Puritan did effect my dac however nothing else in the chain just the dac .

So the Puritan affected your DAC negatively compared to straight with the dedicated line? Can you PM me the components you used for the upgrade. Trying to buy a house and will eventually change out the electrical. That would be the goal.

 

[Jake2]

Hmmm, I was thinking of getting this as well. So is there any way to install the ground rod for the entire house? Instead of having the benefits for only the room where the Puritan block resides ...

I believe one GM should to some extent at least benefit the whole house by offering a low resistance dedicated path to earth for HF noise. That said the shorter the path to ground the better, as a longer path equals more resistance. Especially if that longer path has imperfect conductivity including a junction or two. My experience with signal grounding boxes is the more devices that have direct signal grounds the better, this is on top of their more direct safety/chassis ground connection via the GM. Ie. The more points in a system there are low resistance drains to ground (whether true earth or a localised mini-earth grounding box) the less chance HF noise has to linger and or be passed on to sensitivity circuitty.

At least that's my mental model - after a bit of reading - to make sense of what I'm hearing. The reading includes the experiences of cdacosta over in the AliX cables thread who has done a lot of experimentation with DIY grounding boxes and cables - it's a fascinating read. My main takeaway from his experience is heavier gauge, high purity multi-strand copper works best. Certainly better than lower purity silver coated copper.

Also it seems not all cable topologies have equal resistance to HF noise either. I'm no expert but I've read elsewhere gauge (thickness) and factors relevant to skin effect like braiding or multi fine-strand vs solid/fewer cores can affect how low-resistance a cable path appears to a HF voltage.

I stumbled across a paper in grounding written in a non-audio industrial context with a series of high precision machines which needed to be in perfect synchronisation and/or with high temporal precision (and did not share a master clock to ensure this) otherwise one or more would fail. The concepts were proposed as principles of effective grounding. I just can't for the life of me recall which company it was - will try to find and reshare it.

 

[Mr Brett]

My upgrades have been major over the past 18 months (commensurate with my wage).
All that have remained the same are my amp, speakers, power and RCA cables.

In the last three months:
2 x Plixir Elite linear power supplies for 2 x modded network switches, and router.
3 x Plixir Statement DC cables to match.
Teddy Pardo linear power supply for streamer.
1 x RTZ1 grounding box.
4 x Black Ravioli Big Pads and 4 Pads.
Upgrades to my DDC; Audio GD DI20HE by Coherent Systems UK.
Sound Anchors speaker stands.

Next on the list is a Puritan PSM156.
Is upgrading the supplied Classic cable to their Ultimate worthwhile (for power to the 156)?

Has anyone tried the GroundMaster City?

 

[anyoldears]

Next on the list is a Puritan PSM156.
Is upgrading the supplied Classic cable to their Ultimate worthwhile (for power to the 156)?

Has anyone tried the GroundMaster City?

I would say yes go for the ultimate

 

[Wes S]

Got the rod, wire and Ground Master, and it's time to see what this thing is all about.

Let's hope the rod goes in easy.

 

[teknorob23]

My upgrades have been major over the past 18 months (commensurate with my wage).
All that have remained the same are my amp and speakers.

In the last three months:
2 x Plixir Elite linear power supplies for 2 x modded network switches, and router.
3 x Plixir Statement DC cables to match.
Teddy Pardo linear power supply for streamer.
1 x RTZ1 grounding box.
4 x Black Ravioli Big Pads.
Upgrades to my DDC; Audio GD DI20HE by Coherent Systems UK.
Sound Anchors speaker stands.

Next on the list is a Puritan PSM156.
Is upgrading the supplied Classic cable to their Ultimate worthwhile (for power to the 156)?

Has anyone tried the GroundMaster City?

if you can stretch to it, then its a no brainer and it means you can get away with less expensive PC's running from the PSM156 to your components. That said the ultimate cable does take a good 4-6 weeks to really come on song

 

[Jake2]

I watched a video where several audiophiles tried the PSM156. They were all impressed with the improvements. Said the DAC connected to the device made the biggest performance difference. I feel if you are running off an LPS for the DAC it’s not needed but for every other device in your chain not powered by an LPS it’s a no brainer.

I just stumbled across this vid, as was checking to see if anyone had mentioned it in this thread. So credit to you for first mention but I might take the liberty of linking to it here as it was quite an entertaining watch and could be useful to prospective purchasers. Their reactions mirror mine to the Groundmaster.

 

[Mr Brett]

I just stumbled across this vid, as was checking to see if anyone had mentioned it in this thread. So credit to you for first mention but I might take the liberty of linking to it here as it was quite an entertaining watch and could be useful to prospective purchasers. Their reactions mirror mine to the Groundmaster.

Hey Jake

Did you get your PSM 156 from Reference Audio?

 

[Jake2]

Hey Jake

Did you get your PSM 156 from Reference Audio?

I’ll PM you Mr. Brett.

 

[Dodgerowl]

I just stumbled across this vid, as was checking to see if anyone had mentioned it in this thread. So credit to you for first mention but I might take the liberty of linking to it here as it was quite an entertaining watch and could be useful to prospective purchasers. Their reactions mirror mine to the Groundmaster.

Has anybody compared this against an Audioquest Niagara 1200 in a headphone system? I am considering it but don't seem to have an option for a demo (based in Sheffield UK) and would be grateful for any feedback please. Thanks

 

[teknorob23]

Has anybody compared this against an Audioquest Niagara 1200 in a headphone system? I am considering it but don't seem to have an option for a demo (based in Sheffield UK) and would be grateful for any feedback please. Thanks

I have heard the Niagara but directly compared but audioquest wasn’t particularly impressive. The psm156 is nothing short of extraordinary and outperformed our shunyata kit that cost 5, 6 times the amount. If you contact puritan directly I’m sure they’ll be able to sort you out with demo. That said I don’t think you’d be disappointed if you bought it blind, it’s one of the few genuine bargains in hifi that I’ve come across.