Did anyone experience Audio Prism's Ground Control

Hi Scott,
I can tell you what I have found in my personal system.

The reference GC provides more resolution than the standard. It does this without adding grain or emphasis, just more information retention across the FR bandwidth. Remember, this is all back half of the wave form coherence.

I find the reference GC's the most useful on my speakers, which are very high resolution items from Plant 10 Hi Fi, and are full range single driver systems aided by EnABL. I found using the reference GC's on the amplifier too closed the lateral sound stage down to just the width of the speakers, so the Audio Prism Debut gets the standard GC set. This provides a wall to wall floor to ceiling performance, from two 4 inch drivers!

The preamp is a borrowed solid state Nikko Beta l, with the typical mid 80's transparency and refinement and hashy high frequencies. A reference and a standard RCA are paired here, since the ground scheme is common to both channels and inputs and outputs. These RCA's are on the spare output jacks. The hashiness is gone and what is left is an extremely elegant, liquid, presentation, that I had no idea could be gotten out of a solid state preamp. The phonostage is still crap however.

My Sony SACD player also has this GC combination and both the Red Book and SACD are strongly benefited, with the usual SACD slight darkness and strain having been eliminated. All of the Red Book tendency to harshness on guttural voices and most high frequency information has been transformed, back into the music values it originally came from. Even the underlying hardness to the sound has been mitigated, though not entirely.

I cannot imagine any scheme where the GC's would interfere with your Naim's grounding scheme. I have heard musings about Naim products requiring Naim cable loads to remain stable. Not sure this is true at all, but the GC has so little capacitance and so little inductance and is on the return side of the signal path in any event, that I have difficulty in imagining any damaging circumstances arising.

My system is distinctly high performance, from what are now upper mid fi components. I am quite happy with the entire package and while I was just as happy before GC came along, I couldn't stand going without. I have tried. Do note that I am the inventor of these things, so I undoubtedly have a personal slant, but I am trying to provide you with what I have found. Ozzie has a number of GC's in has system and may have a few things to say too.

Bud

Thanks for the response Bud.

So, are you saying that the reference gc basically sounds
the same as the standard gc in terms of sound staging, bass
response and smoothness but offers more low level detail?

Also, is it recommended to use an rca pair? Are some inputs
or outputs better then others?

Well, not exactly. The reference GC provides quite a bit more detail. It does appear to close down the sound stage width for some systems The net effect being much more information retained, in those areas covered by note and transient specific internal gradient information, and more wide band low amplitude coherence in general.

The standard GC provides the same sort of information retention, but it is not really close to the reference units in retaining as much of the specifics pointed to above. They don't either of them have any sound character at all. Whatever level of resolution your system is currently capable of, these two will help retain the back half of the wave form of that level.

Having said that, most modern day systems have a tremendous amount of information, in the signal side of the electronics. It is the lack of care for the audible properties of grounds that GC is rectifying.

I realize it is hard to grasp how the back half of a wave form might be important. We aren't adding anything to the characteristics you are already familiar with. We are just making what you have far more complete than it is without some form of attention, to the audible portions of a proper ground system.

As for the RCA units, in my tube preamp which is off having some radio frequency oscillations squelched, the reference RCA all by itself was exactly what was needed to free up the sound from a slightly slow, very sweet and clear character. All that occurred was a sense of agility, quite a bit better rendition of instruments within their performance space and greater wholeness to the entire sound. Everything sounded complete, in comparison to no reference RCA. The standard RCA had an effect similar in character, but not in degree of information completeness, and the resulting depth of field illusion. In that case, there was no narrowing of the sound field, with either of the two.

My recommendation is to go slow. If you have a CD player, or outboard DAC with an available input or output, that is contiguous between channels, try the standard RCA there first. If you like the change, try another on your preamp, again with the same stipulations about contiguous grounds.

Before you do either of these I would suggest a pair of the standard GC lugs on your speakers. If you decide to move to the reference units, these standard lugged units can go on the other end of your speaker cable. I don't think you will find you need more than this. However, once in place the changes wrought by the RCA units will be much more effective and available.

Almost all modern audio gear has contiguous grounds, with only some outboard Dac's (Peter Daniels comes to mind) having proper ground planes, with separate channels and power ground separate from signal ground.

Since there is a money back guarantee on these things, I am sure you will know if you are satisfied within the 30 days allowed.

Bud

Thanks again Bud.
The last thing I need is decreased width so
I will consider trying the standard gc's.

Interestingly, the positive effects that
Ozzy described are the same that I am experiencing
with the Audience PDC power center which is
designed to give proper grounding especially for
Naim gear. So, I am now a firm believer in proper
grounding. My system is finally sounding like real
music and not just electronic sound.

As for my dac and transport, I don't have any spare
rca's. I do have the Naim xs integrated and a
Cary 300b sei sing ended triode tube amp that I could
use the rca's on.

So on the spades, how long do they take to run in?
Also, is it best to start with only one rca or do
you need a pair?

So, for my pre

Hi Scott.

The single, or pair, RCA question is answered by how the strip grounds are handled in any piece of gear. If they are separated into two channels then two equivalent RCA's are needed. If the channels are not separate then one may do the trick. It may be worth getting one of each grade to experiment with, but only if you have common ground between channels. You may have to peer inside to determine this.

Look on the RCA jacks for input and output. If they all go to the same buss, for both left and right channels, then trying two different RCA's out will be worth while. Doesn't matter where you put them either, input or output, in either case.

These take about 4 hours to work through the charge stabilization period. You will get tonal vividness immeadiately, and it will increase for a period of time, but the sound will start of some what sharp and almost monaural. The GC's will gradually open up to even tonal character and reasonable stage width, only to snap back to the previous state.

With every one of these "breaths" the stage will get wider and deeper and they will stabilize at a very wide, very deep sound stage, with considerable 3 dimensional control within those spaces.

You can take them off for about two days and they will recharge within minutes. Keeping them attached will hold their charge state for quite a bit longer, but not running the system for a month will have them go through a good portion of the breathing again. When taking them to some other system, they will will need about 20 minutes to take control.

Thanks for your comments on the ground system and it's benefit. Most EE's just ask me how I can justify any sort of expense for grounds? Noting that they have never seen any data supporting that need. I just smile, knowing they will continue to provide me with satisfied customers, once their Ground Control issues have been dealt with.

Bud