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A New Ground -- Benefits of introducing the Synergistic Research Active Ground Block SE

Dedicated ground solutions are not a novel idea but over the past year it seems everyone has been coming out with their version. For a few months I’ve been thinking about introducing one to my system and had considered Entreq, Telos, Nordost and others. Although I have a bunch of Synergistic Research (SR) kit I had dismissed their older basic ground block as too rinky dink -- however when I heard about the new Active Ground Blocks I thought that could be the way to go. The Active Ground blocks are smallish devices with a mains connection and a plethora of outlets for grounding cables to every component. They incorporate a range of the latest SR UEF tweaks
http://www.synergisticresearch.com/isolation/ground-isolation/active-ground-block-se/

While the blocks alone are quite expensive ($2995) you will also need to lay out for connections to all of your components -- ideally the HD links. In my case as I have two distinct zones in my system I needed two ground blocks and 13 links -- quite an outlay

Question is is it worthwhile? Most certainly yes. The impact of implementing a full grounding solution in my system was one of the most profound changes I’ve experienced. It’s not a change that can be described in the usual audiophile terms of dynamics, frequency response, transparency etc. Instead it’s a shift in the wholeness, the verisimilitude, the gestalt of what you are hearing. Probably this is most obvious in a couple of places. Firstly is in background washes of sound (e.g. classic synth backings, or massed strings, or the whoosh that opens "Private Investigations") -- which now take on a scale, texture and clarity that had previously been completely masked. Secondly in vocals where a whole level of shading, nuance, breathwork, and subtly inflections are now audible. This is not simply more "detail" or a "reduction in the noise floor" it’s as if things which you did not know previously existed are suddenly there, as they had been all along

The effect is enhanced the more things you ground -- obviously all active components but even stands (my GPA stands are conductive so I connect a basic ground link to the bare metal inside the stand posts -- the surface metal is varnished and non conductive).

While I obviously can recommend the SR products I imagine any ground solution will bring similar benefits and would strongly suggest that anyone with a high resolution system explore some form of ground solution

ps For those in the now the music to accompany this review is A New Ground

128x128folkfreak
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almarg
9,670 posts
 
Ralph, thanks. That all makes sense from a technical standpoint, as far as I am concerned. Question: Could similar adverse effects occur to an audible degree if rather than circuit ground and chassis ground/AC safety ground being connected directly together in one or more of the components in a system, they are instead connected together through a resistor whose value is simply too low? For example, I’ve seen in some ARC designs that resistors as low as 10 ohms are used for that purpose.

Best regards,
-- Al

atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,841 posts
 
Hello Al,

The resistor is there to prevent ground currents and often 10 ohms is enough to do the job, just as you see in the old Dynaco gear.

I like a little more myself, and its not a bad idea to place some high current diodes in opposite directions in parallel with the resistor. In this way if a component is damaged and places the AC line on the chassis, a fuse will blow rather than just cooking the resistor.

I've not played with the resistor value to see what effect it has, but it stands to reason that a value too low mitigates its use and not in a good way :)
folkfreak's avatar
folkfreak OP
1,349 posts
 
Sorry Ralph -- you're dodging my question. If I accept your argument then installing the grounding box fixes all of the issues that the designers of the original equipment caused by (as you hypothesize) grounding the chassis of some but of kit somewhere along the line

Ok with this fixed why the hell should it then matter that I ground a passive piece of metal and carbon fibre (the stand) -- or is it equally valid that these huge bits of conductive material are picking up god knows what nasties and the ground path is a way of getting this crap out of the system?

And btw SR acknowledge your main point in their description anyways, to quote
The high-speed, SR Active Ground Block provides a conductive path for this ground, separate from the normal current-carrying path of your components, which under certain conditions can add up to 10 dB of noise if poorly designed
My point is that even a well designed grounding system can be contaminated (why else do we put filters on our grounds entering the house as well?) and providing a fast path to remove this contamination is and likely will be in most systems, a good thing
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atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,841 posts
 
@folkfreak 

Sorry Ralph -- you're dodging my question. If I accept your argument then installing the grounding box fixes all of the issues that the designers of the original equipment caused by (as you hypothesize) grounding the chassis of some but of kit somewhere along the line

Ok with this fixed why the hell should it then matter that I ground a passive piece of metal and carbon fibre (the stand) -- or is it equally valid that these huge bits of conductive material are picking up god knows what nasties and the ground path is a way of getting this crap out of the system?

Actually I'm not dodging anything. However FWIW I'm not making sense out of the second sentence of your first paragraph here and I'm happy to address it if you can clarify.

Regarding the latter paragraph: FWIW some years back at my house I found it a good idea to ground my equipment stand (Sound Anchors custom stand) as floating it seemed to cause a little hum in the phono. But oddly(? perhaps not) as we improved the grounding scheme in our equipment over the years, for some reason grounding the equipment stand no longer has any effect.  I know I don't have a lot of RFI in my location, so I suspect that grounding a metal stand in a noisy environment is not a bad idea. But all that is needed for that is a bit of wire.

Note also that all depends on the house wiring being correct. In that regard the green wire on the AC outlet is the ground wire... and that's the one that is tied to house ground. Now the neutral (white) wire is also tied to that point, but the neutral carries current while the ground wire does not. So the ground wire will not carry any significant current if the audio equipment is properly grounded. This will prove to be an effective sink for RF noise and the like which is always present in some form.


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