Grounding cable gauge size

sounds like a worthwhile avenue of research; if you can shed more light on the functionality of earth boxes and simplify their construction kudos on you..

the moment progress in commercial earth box construction appears to have stagnated at the “I can make my recipe sound more esoteric than yours“ stage, with no real justification given as to why certain ingredients are being added.

This has lead to the brute force approach, where bigger is better, instead of a smarter is better mindset focused on uncovering the actual physics at play

If there was ever a snake oil product, that is it. You are not going to hear a difference in ground cables. It is either grounded or it is not. The reason the ground cable provided with some turntables is super thin gauge is because it prevents a solid or rigid connection, as that would be a path for vibration to travel on. The thin gauge is sort of absorbing vibration like a spring rather than transferring it. You can just use any thin 22 or 24 gauge wire from say an auto parts store or hardware store. If you fancy expensive silver, then use that...it ain't going to make one bit of difference in the sound. No ground? Well then you have an issue(s), such as hum, buzz, erroneous noise etc...

then why do so many otherwise sane people report that they do? This type of uninformed condescension wears very thin from those who have zero hands on experience and simply pontificate from their armchairs

It‘s the why it works I find fascinating..