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Synergistic Grounding Block and Tweaking it.


Synergistic Grounding Block and Tweaking it.

I always liked the Synergistic Products and I have to give them credit for bringing out some of the most unique tweaks available today. There interconnects, speaker cables, and power cables were always top notch, perhaps a little pricey, but I always hated all of those extra mini couplers wires! So, I moved away from their wires. I think there new series does away with the extra mini couplers, but they are still IMHO still quite pricey.

I wanted to try the Synergistic Grounding Block. The price was not too expensive, so I ordered one from my dealer. Did I mention I always hated all those darn extra SR wires? This grounding block better impress.

Once I received it, I couldn’t believe the size of it. It is about 6 “long and maybe 1 ½” thick and about 2” inches high. At one end it has a hole for accepting a regular size banana plug and on the top there are 18 pin hole openings. The grounding block comes included with six (6) of the skinniest wires with the smallest banana plugs I have ever seen for grounding! There is also included another skinny wire that is connected to an AC plug (ground only) that plugs into the wall outlet with the other end having a standard size banana that connects to the side of the grounding block.

Well, since I only own one other SR product, I changed five (5) of the rest of the banana plug ends to RCA so I was able to try it with my own non SR equipment.

To my surprise, it did indeed make the soundstage purer and deeper. I don’t understand it? All of my equipment is plugged into dedicated grounded outlets, so why would this little diminutive grounding block with all those skinny wires do more?

Now, the tweaker in me took over. It seems SR also sells higher grade connection ground cables, but boy, are they pricey! Two of them cost more than the block itself! And the Synergistic grounding block can accept 18 of these ground connections!

I had some pure .9999 22 gauge silver wire left over from another project so I installed an RCA connector, sleeved it through some Teflon tubing and pushed one end into one of those 18 pin holes in the grounding block. To keep the wire from falling out of the pin holes, I pushed cut 2” lengths of some .999 18 gauge silver wire also into the pin hole which tightened up the connection. On the end, the RCA was connected to an unused RCA on my equipment. I also had some pure .999 16 gauge silver wire, so I installed this on one end with a regular banana, and then installed an AC plug (ground only) to the other end. This replaced the skinny wire that SR supplied to connect from the wall to the grounding block.

Sounding better… interesting!

On line I found some 12 gauge .9999 silver wire about 6 foot long, that cost about $50. But with this cable, to keep it pure throughout I used no connector on either end. I did this by shaping the wall outlet wire end into a V and pushed it into the wall outlet for a tight fit. The other end was crimped tight and shoved into the regular banana hole into the grounding block.

Each “upgrade” in wire went through a minor break in period. (hours not days) and doggone it, it did increase the purity of the sound.

So, now with the 18 available pin holes in the grounding block, I have all of my system connected. That includes my video and subwoofers!

Someday, I would like to try one of the higher grade SR cables to compare to my DIY version.

Folks, this little grounding block does work wonders and far exceeds the price to performance, but it is still a mystery to me. Plus all those darn wires!

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128x128ozzy
zorro
44 posts
 
Hi everybody,

Very interesting, so I order the  SR Ground block made my own cables like ozzy suggest and it's amazing.Now I have the High Def ac cable and 1 High Def RCA cable(very expensive) and thinking about to use the RCA with a RCA Y adaptor to connect to my mono blocks amps, so one single High def RCA to both amps,My question do you think it's gonna work with the same results?
ozzy's avatar
ozzy OP
7,461 posts
 
That's great zorro. 
I think that using a hi quality pure silver wire (or the best wire you can find) with a 2mm banana on one end and a rca with just the ground connected on the other end would work fine. Personally, the SR High Def cables are just too expensive for what they are. 
That is; a single thin wire.

BTW, you also can find 4mm to 2mm adapters on EBay which will allow you to use any type of hi quality banana cable and just install an rca / XLR / bnc / f connector on the other end.


ozzy
dlcockrum's avatar
dlcockrum
2,190 posts
 
I originally bought the SR passive grounding block and followed by getting the Active version. Two SR HD grounding cables were part of the latter deal (one with the RJ-45 connection for my router/modem and one with a RCA connector for my DAC) and also two of the SR standard cables, one terminated with RCA and one with a mini-spade connector for connecting components without a spare input (like my Aurender N100H).

Agree with Ozzy that DIY can be a very good alternative to the SR grounding cables. I experimented with a few inexpensive silver coated mil-spec multi-strand copper wires of different gauges (from 12 gauge down to 20) and different dielectrics (both PTFE and Kapton) using 2mm bananas I found on eBay for plugs into the GB’s copper buss and either RCA, XLR, or mini-spade connectors to connect to various gear in my system. The sound quality varied between the different wires (I found that larger gauge is not necessarily better), but each was an improvement over the SR standard grounding cable IMO.

The best sounding DIY grounding cable I have built so far uses 18 gauge solid-conductor 99.99% pure silver wire loosely fitted inside a Teflon tube with a KLE Innovations “Pure Silver” RCA connector (the positive pin is silver-coated copper but it is not connected in a grounding cable and the negative pin which is connected is pure silver). Building my own using WBT 4% silver solder runs about $75 per cable including the pricey but excellent KLE connectors and I feel that they sound on par with the $400 SR HD cables that I have.

Another interesting option is from Mike Powell at Verastarr. He builds SR grounding block-compatible cables using his 99.997% pure silver ribbons for half the price of the SR HD cables. I plan to get one to try when he returns from Axpona early next week. This option could potentially be the best sounding of the bunch.

It would be good it we owners of the SR grounding block could collaborate on sourcing of the wire and connectors and also share our experiences with the sound quality of the various DIY and purchased cables we have tried. Please PM me if anyone is interested in doing this.

Dave


ozzy's avatar
ozzy OP
7,461 posts
 
dlcockrum,

So, do you think there is that much of a sound quality difference between the standard grounding block and the powered grounding block to warrant such a price difference?

ozzy
grannyring's avatar
grannyring
6,479 posts
 
Great thread guys. I have a question (s).  It seems one could purchase this (link below) and place it in a nice box etc.. and then make your own grounding wires for your various gear.

https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/ero-egba14210jf?seid=dxese1&cm_mmc=pla-google-_-shopping-_-d...

My question relates to the power cord I see on this passive SR grounding device. I assume it is passive? Is the AC plug simply used to connect the outlet ground and the hot and neutral bypassed completely? If so, one could fashion a connector that fits snuggly into the wall outlet ground without the need for a full AC outlet plug. Is this correct? I am not seeing anything else in the SR device that would make it sound or work any better than this $50 link. I think the SR base is simply solid aluminum with no special materials inside. I may be wrong. Do they put crystals etc.. inside this box? I don’t think so.

Lastly, the cables could be connected to this $50 block by spades which could clamped down by a nut and bolt or the wires could even be directly soldered. These grounding cables are single wire so the connectors on the gear/equipment end only involve one solder point. For example on an RCA jack, just the outer shell, not the center pin. On a USB cable, just the outer shell and nothing else. This seems like a very affordable and simple DIY project for a complete grounding plane solution.


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