Shunyata Altaira Grounding Station ........has anybody purchased this new product ?

@holydean

I dug around Shunyata site and did not find where Calin talks about grounding with a bar of copper and 16 awg wire. Can you point it out. I have tried a few times in the past to make this type of install work. I have a 1/2" thick OFC copper bar I drilled and tapped to accept wires. I have used 10 awg bare copper, 14 awg bare copper, 20 awg dead soft silver wire, 20 awg dead soft silver wrapped in cotton with a mylar shield that is grounded on the bar end only. I never heard a thing with any configuration. I have bonded the bar to the ground system at my house with a dedicated bare copper #4 dropped 4 feet a ufer ground bonding my entire electrical system that reads about 4 ohms. Still heard nothing. I have taken the #4 and split bolted all the component ground wires I attached to the ground stud and still heard nothing.

In the video Caelin did mention you want the electrical system ground properly. I don’t feel loose ground wires behind your rack is what he is talking about. He is talking about the branch circuit grounds connections to the earth ground in the main panel.

I believe in ground boxes and will try one. Probably a Shunyata. I am up in the air on using Shunyata technology or Entreque. I have meet enough people who use ground boxes and believe they are a benefit. I have never met a person who uses a a ground box that has eliminated it from the electrical system. I have met people who have used one, then moved to another brand. But never have they decided a ground box is not an overall benefit. FWIW, If I put a meters on the ground stud of a component and touch other sections of the component, I always read stray voltage on the case. It can be up to a half a volt. I would assume a ground box dropping this type of stray voltage out of the system (if possible) would be a benefit. Honestly, I have no idea what a ground box does. If there is any measurable change that I could see with my tools. Per my grounding above, I did not measure any change. I will also note, the stray voltage riding on the case is constantly in flux rising and falling. It is never stable.  So its hard to measure.

 

The System Ground, therein Mother Earth connection is not involved. The Earth does not possess some magical mystical power that sucks nasties from an audio system.

Please provide any credible evidence that says it does...

The main purpose of the System Ground is for lightning protection.

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Grounding Myths

From Henry W. Ott’s book, "Electromagnetic Compatibility Engineering"

3.1.7 Grounding Myths

More myths exist relating to the field of grounding than any other area of electrical engineering. The more common of these are as follows:

1. The earth is a low-impedance path for ground current. False, the impedance of the earth is orders of magnitude greater than the impedance of a copper conductor.

2. The earth is an equipotential. False, this is clearly not true by the result of (1 above).

3. The impedance of a conductor is determined by its resistance. False, what happened to the concept of inductive reactance?

4. To operate with low noise, a circuit or system must be connected to an earth ground. False, because airplanes, satellites, cars and battery powered laptop computers all operate fine without a ground connection. As a mater of fact, an earth ground is more likely to be the cause of noise problem. More electronic system noise problems are resolved by removing (or isolating) a circuit from earth ground than by connecting it to earth ground.

5. To reduce noise, an electronic system should be connected to a separate “quiet ground” by using a separate, isolated ground rod. False, in addition to being untrue, this approach is dangerous and violates the requirements of the NEC (electrical code/rules).

6. An earth ground is unidirectional, with current only flowing into the ground. False, because current must flow in loops, any current that flows into the ground must also flow out of the ground somewhere else.

7. An isolated AC power receptacle is not grounded. False, the term “isolated” refers only to the method by which a receptacle is grounded, not if it is grounded.

8. A system designer can name ground conductors by the type of the current that they should carry (i.e., signal, power, lightning, digital, analog, quiet, noisy, etc.), and the electrons will comply and only flow in the appropriately designated conductors. Obviously false."

Henry W. Ott

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/ / / /

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Read the writings, White Papers, on Earth Grounding by,

Henry W Ott

Ralph Morrison

Bill Whitlock

Neil A Muncy

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What's your point Jea?

Kingrex said:

I dug around Shunyata site and did not find where Calin talks about grounding with a bar of copper and 16 awg wire. Can you point it out. I have tried a few times in the past to make this type of install work. I have a 1/2" thick OFC copper bar I drilled and tapped to accept wires. I have used 10 awg bare copper, 14 awg bare copper, 20 awg dead soft silver wire, 20 awg dead soft silver wrapped in cotton with a mylar shield that is grounded on the bar end only. I never heard a thing with any configuration. I have bonded the bar to the ground system at my house with a dedicated bare copper #4 dropped 4 feet a ufer ground bonding my entire electrical system that reads about 4 ohms. Still heard nothing. I have taken the #4 and split bolted all the component ground wires I attached to the ground stud and still heard nothing.

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I have bonded the bar to the ground system at my house with a dedicated bare copper #4 dropped 4 feet "to" a ufer ground bonding my entire electrical system that reads about 4 ohms. Still heard nothing.

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a ufer ground bonding my entire electrical system that reads about 4 ohms.

My point?

Are you saying that EMI current can be drained, diverted, to the Earth? Where’s the circuit? Through the Earth, to where? It has to return to the source doesn’t it?

 

Henry Ott, Myths:

6. An earth ground is unidirectional, with current only flowing into the ground. False, because current must flow in loops, any current that flows into the ground must also flow out of the ground somewhere else

 

Somewhere else? Back to the source?...

Why would the EMI current travel through the ufer ground, (concrete-encased electrode), to the earth to get back to the source when it can travel through the #4CU conductor, (Grounding Electrode Conductor), that connects the ufer ground to the Grounded Conductor in the service equipment panel?

 

/ / / /

 

After watching the Gabriel interview video I posted above, here is my understanding of how the Shunyata Altaira Ground System works,

 

Each of the two Shunyata ground filter boxes has 7 grounding posts. 1 thru 6 are for audio equipment connections. The 7th ground post, identified CGC, is for connecting the common clean ground bus of one filter box to another Shunyata ground box. The identified ground post is also used to connect the CGC ground post to a reference ground of the building AC power system. (Therein the EGC contact on a wall outlet or an insulated IG conductor installed back to the System Ground of the electrical service. (The final point of connection being the electrical service Grounded Conductor.)

 

Each of the 6 grounding posts for the audio equipment are connected to individual EMI noise filters. (Therein each grounding post has its own filter. The other end of each filter is connected to a common ground bus. Supposedly there will not be any EMI on the (filtered) clean ground bus.

All of the audio equipment (grounds) are connected together by the clean ground bus... The identified CGC ground post is also connected to the clean ground bus.

 

The EMI filtering takes place in the Shunyata ground filter system box... Mother Earth is not involved.

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Jea, quit putting words in my mouth. I never said anything of the sort. I said people populate the internet with stories of ground wires to blocks of this and that and they make better music. I simply tried it myself, measured and heard nothing. It may be because I have excellent branch circuit wiring as well as service bonding to ground.

You also appear to be overly infatuated with ground as earth and seem to miss a lot of the rest of the equation. Have you ever been in a recording studio. Have you seen how they land their equipment. Its not on fancy wood stands. Its in a metal rack where the frames of all the equipment are bolted to said rack. And those racks have up to a 2/0 piece of copper that goes back to the earth ground. So why would someone in a home environment not think that lacking a metal rack to bond the case too, why not use a wire from ground stud to ground stud. Why did Magico make a very nice stand that also has a solid copper ground bar top to bottom. Maybe they are only talking vibrations.  I don't know.  Per Magico

A full-length pure copper grounding rod is featured on the MRACK which allows each shelf and component to be grounded and funnel noise away from the electronics.

https://www.magicoaudio.com/mrack

I don’t think its foolish or a waste of time for people to try ground enhancement technique in their own system. It could be someone has dirty cords, loose connections, mismatched branch wiring. All symptoms that may lead to ground loops. Who knows, maybe a common ground bond from stud to stud might reduce noise from those issues. Bring all the equipment to a more equal potential. I would not say that is a solution. Its more a band aid to me. But it may work for some.

I really only get pissed when people say to break the ground and put a loose rod in the yard. It may sound better. I will never know because I put life and safety above getting better sound. Otherwise, try what you want. It was not many years back the first ground boxes came out filled with Pixi Dust and people cried to the mountain tops it was all snake oil. You can’t drain noise!!!!!! Well, now even Shunyata has one. Did something fundamentally change about electricity. No. Some people just though about it in a different way other missed. Has Caelin published what he is doing. I don’t think so. I actually head him say he pots his technology in an epoxy you can not drill, chip or burn away to protect his technology from reverse engineering.