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Do better ingredients make a better Ground Wire?

We have all heard the slogan "Better ingredients better Pizza". If this is true with Pizza, how about applying this Principal to a DIY Ground wire I pondered. So I set off on a journey to find out if using better ingredients (wire) would make a better ground cable. My finding of course only apply to my system in my listening room using my ears (my wife and my Beagle dog don't count). But they heard the difference as well. To say this was a short trip is an understatement. To say that the two versions I made more than held there own is an even BIGGER understatement. One version uses solid core Silver wire. The other version uses a silver & Palladium mix. I made 4 of each kind, both versions terminated using a pure 8 awg copper spade. Do better ingredients make a better Ground wire. In my system, a very understated YES!!!
jejaudio
budp
55 posts
 
Lacee, after poking around Google I finally stumbled onto the web site for the Walker Links. From their description I would have to say no, they do not perform the same function that Ground Control does. You can test this by obtaining a 2 foot long length of inexpensive lamp cord,. Split it into the two halves that make up this sort of cord and strip both ends of both cords of plastic insulation for about 2 inches. Make a loop out of each cord, twist the wires together and insert this twisted grouping into the hole in the stem of your black lug speaker terminal. Play music and allow about two to three hours for the full effect to show up. This is not as refined as Ground Control, but will give you a pretty good idea of what is available from our product. I suspect these loops will work very well with the Walker units and the commercial Ground Control will perform quite a bit better.
hevac1
812 posts
 
Messing around with electrical grounds can do only 1 thing, make you or your loved ones the easiest and less resistive path to ground. Leave it to the professionals. This should not be a tweek but can be life or death.
lacee
811 posts
 
Thanks Bud, here's my take on your suggestion and also the results.

I used simple solid core hook up wire from the Source(Radio shack)22 guage.
I cut 4 x 24 inch lengths.
I cut about an inch or more of the plastic covering off all ends.
I braided each pair of wires together,formed an arc and then twisted all the bare ends together,inserted the ends into a banana plug and put the one finished ground wire into the neg speaker terminal.
The same was done to the other two lengnths of wire for the other speaker.

I powered up my amp, took a deep breath,and nothing bad happened.
No electrical arcing, no electronic shock, no amp shutdown, no speaker blow ups, nothing but a "feeling" that something had changed for the better.
Massed violins on a Harminia Mundi cd seemd to be less harsh, more pleasant to the ears.
I heard nothing else, no humm,hiss or any type of sonic degradation, but no boost of any treble or bass frequencies either.

So ,as much as I can't be 100% positive that my system has improved,what I am certain of is that this will not harm anything either as some have implied here.
That is , if you do as Bud has directed,and if your experiments with different wires conforms to his recipe, I can't see anyone having any problems that would result in harm to your gear or most importantly to yourself.
If you are a tinkerer, tweaker type, here is something to try.
If you are from the camp that think this is folly or that it can harm you/your gear,all I can say is that you should try it before you jump to conclusions.
budp
55 posts
 
Thank you for doing that Lacee.

As for our implementation of this novel idea, we use 140 strands of wire and control the amount and types of dielectric materials used. Anyone could do the same research, ad hoc as it was, and duplicate our results. Or you can buy our results for quite a bit less cost than the amount of time it will take you to learn the relatively subtle things you need to know.

I am a transformer engineer and I am aware of wire and dielectric investigations, as it is part of my professional career. None of the thoughts behind Ground Control are collected as a single concept in the scientific literature I am aware of, but each of the component understandings is well supported.

What we have developed in Ground Control will not leave you with a "feeling" that the reproduction has changed for the better. The changes will be quite obvious, as information retention improvements, and they won't be on the leading edge of the signal. It is still surprising to me how much information is lost to corruption of the back half of all wave forms, after they have passed through the "load". This portion of all signal information is then pulled back through the load, after a vector change in the field event has expossed the signal holding electrons to local dielectrics, somewhre between your speaker cables, the safety ground outside your building and the power sub station down the road.

Bud
budp
55 posts
 
Hevacel,

I couldn't agree more!!!!!!!

Everyone, please note that bare copper wire not only will not provide any benefit to your listening experience but is a safety issue, just as it would be if you were using bare copper wire as your speaker cables.

You should be protected from the power grid by your amplifier, with particular protection provided by current limiting devices in solid state amps and output transformers in tube devices. The voltages in your speaker cables are not considered to be lethal by the worlds safety agencies but using bare copper wire will still cause destruction of your equipment.

However, as an added safety note, you should not at any moment interrupt the connection to safety ground in your equipment, unless you know for a FACT that it is "Double Insulated". All two prong plugged electrical equipment must be double insulated to pass UL, CSA or CE and thereby are safe to use without a third prong connected to safety ground. You should never use a safety ground defeating plug, period. Use isolation signal transformers from Jensen, Sowter, O-Netics, Lundahl and others to break the ground loops in your equipment, if you are suffering hum problems. You will not suffer a degradation in sonic qualities by doing so.

Our Ground Control has as much protection from accidental exposure to safety ground as does the typical speaker cable, with only the prongs of the mounting fork or body of the RCA plug being uncovered by a suitable dielectric material. Even the 140 strands of four nines copper wire are insulated, individually. You can use these devices without fear of death or destruction, RF noise or self levitation.

As for experimenting, if you don't use an insulated wire, you will get no benefit, so don't bother.

Bud
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