Tripoint troy signature grounding device

Barry2013 · Nov 27, 2014

Thanks for that Geardaddy.
I became aware of Kemp Elektroniks about six months ago but have not tried any of their products to date.
I will have another look in the light of your positive experience.

Geardaddy · Nov 28, 2014

spiritofmusic said:
Geardaddy, Entreq recommend creating a Faraday Cage effect by grounding one's rack. No idea if anyone has done it. What is the rationale behind the idea from Miguel's POV?

spirit, I think Faraday shielding may be part of it. The Starsound engineers (Sistrum rack guys) have grounded their racks using Tripoint at a show in the past and were the ones who first mentioned it to me. They talked about an increased grounding sink or plane and increased efficiency akin to what you see with different grounding cable configurations. I am going to try it for sure....

Geardaddy · Nov 28, 2014

TBG said:
Geardaddy, I have been through much of the same terrain as what you describe. I even have a Kemp Electronics Power Source ac conditioner for US blades, which while impressive technically, does little to improve my sound. It is available cheap. I have tried capacitors on the circuits in my room and even those far away from my listening room. All of these did wonders at reducing the noise on the checker unit but totally ruined my sound. I have had perhaps twenty ac devices, including the Pranawire predecessor to the Linebacker. The clear best I've heard is the High Fidelity Cables Waveguide power center in its latest form. This uses rare earth magnets with great flux to remote noise on the line.

But the real question here is not ac noise but rather noise on the earth grounds. My experience there started simply enough with having only one component with an ac ground to my house ground. I had a H-Cat P12R preamp that hated any more than one grounded unit. I tried cheaters to remove the other grounds with little success. One day I was complaining about how crappy most cheater to remove the ac ground, when Elliott of Synergistic Research said that zapping a simple Home Depot $.79 cheater on the Tesla coil yielded incredible results. I told him I wanted seven of them. He was absolutely right. My sound with the H-Cat leaped. Unfortunately, other line stages did not show the same benefits and as I moved to increasingly shielded and vibration controlled power cords, their weight made using cheaters quite difficult. I tried one with the Goebel power cord and it just fell out of the wall! I could have spent the time using cords to hold it in but didn't bother.

Then several years ago I got a Tripoint Troy for review. At the time I was fighting some hum with my phono stage and had an inexpensive Granite Audio grounding unit. I thought how could a ground unit be worth what the Troy cost. The Granite did nothing for me, but wow the Troy was of massive benefit. I could not afford it at the time, but later bought the Troy Signature. The Troy Signature just makes the speaker wall my window to realism.

I recently thought to use the Signature as I had heard the Entreq used namely connecting it to my stainless steel Stillpoints Rack. I heard some benefit and have kept it. I am presently using Tripoint Silver ground cables with one exception. I have one Troy SE grounding cables to one of my BMC M2 amps. I remember being shocked at what that cable did when it replaced one of my Silver grounds. Soon I will get two of the new Troy SEs and have to return the original to be undated. Miguel assures me that I will ultimately want to replace all of the Silvers. Yes, Spirit, this grounding stuff is replacing my component costs in audio.

Of course, the ultimate questions are the Emperor and the Emperor ac unit. I very much doubt ever going to the ac unit.

Very interesting TBG. You are a veteran tweaker. I too had the Granite Audio unit. It was effective for ground loops and dropped the noise floor to a modest degree. Great company. I owned their CDP at one time.

Have you tried the Synergistic's treatments for subpanel switches? I have a friend who swears by that treatment.

What is most startling to me about all this subject is the fact (experiential fact) that a system can be rendered more 3D and holographic by ancillary/tweak components that many people don't believe in....

Geardaddy · Nov 28, 2014

DRC said:
Geardaddy, perhaps you just like chaos...I just prefer order...

I jest of course. Most of our systems are controlled chaos in terms of constant experimentation. At least the wife thinks so....

Geardaddy · Nov 28, 2014

DRC said:
I haven't yet but will try to audition the full arsenal of AE gear this Christmas and report back. Once I have auditioned all the earthing cables, I will assess getting a second Troy Sig. I too have heard that grounding the racks help so I plan to experiment on that too- but I suspect the impact of grounding the racks may be limited since all of the primary components are already themselves grounded?!

I was thinking of grounding the racks in lieu of the equipment chassis. Will have to experiment. The Sistrum racks are all metal (brass and steel) and are not an hodge podge of wood, metal, etc.

Geardaddy · Nov 28, 2014

spiritofmusic said:
Gosh, grounding the rack, what a concept. As if grounding components wasn't enough of a journey. I wouldn't be surprised if this then leads to grounding the room, and then the ultimate - grounding the listener LOL!!! Ironic, since signing the cheques for the astronomic prices of uber grounding can hardly be call a "grounded" behaviour pattern, more ultra OCD!!!
Just when I thought I might be able to step off the grounding merry-go-'round, I've done a little experimenting and separated the grounds to my true mono Audion preamps, keeping the ground leads on separate posts on the ground box, as opposed to combining them as I was doing. Well, an amazing impvt - greater separation in the soundstage, and less euphonic warmth. Don't find the same quantum impvt re whether I separate or combine grounding leads on single ground posts on my SETs, or even cdp and phono stage. But in my setup, the mono preamps seem v.sensitive to being grounded separately. The mysteries of grounding continue.

Believe it or not spirit, Miguel and I had discussed the concept of the grounding the room. So, I am as crazy as you are and even crazier as this is all still in the theoretical or experimental plane.

Your findings about isolating the various grounding elements mirrors what the AE crowd have discovered (and thus the preponderance of systems over their with more than one Troy....

)

I credit Dale Pitcher from Mosaic Audio with stimulating my interest in grounding. He has been recommending various grounding schemes for his sound rooms for over 25 years. Typically, this has meant some form of dedicated ionic grounding (to code) in the name of lowering the noise floor, etc.

spiritofmusic · Nov 28, 2014

This is a serious q, Geardaddy. Grounding the room is one step too far for me, as it would be for 99.9% of people. But then again, my favourite cafe owner only believes you should spend $50 on a secondhand iPod and headphones for musical nirvana and thinks my efforts are OTT loco! Tbh, I used to love my music as a 9 yr old in '73 on my mum's cheap transistor radio, and here I am now, a few steps beyond. I live on the upper floor of an urban apartment, there is no way I could contemplate an ionic rod etc.
If you're really going to expt to these limits, it's then time to go really radical - ground y'self! I'm really not joking, surely we as a complex biochemical organism are producing electrical currents and potentials, our whole nervous system a complicated series of battery-like stored/discharged energies etc. WE are the most promising component of all to ground.
Put that to Miguel, and ask if he can make up something special for this most uber of tweaks.

Geardaddy · Nov 28, 2014

spiritofmusic said:
This is a serious q, Geardaddy. Grounding the room is one step too far for me, as it would be for 99.9% of people. But then again, my favourite cafe owner only believes you should spend $50 on a secondhand iPod and headphones for musical nirvana and thinks my efforts are OTT loco! Tbh, I used to love my music as a 9 yr old in '73 on my mum's cheap transistor radio, and here I am now, a few steps beyond. I live on the upper floor of an urban apartment, there is no way I could contemplate an ionic rod etc.
If you're really going to expt to these limits, it's then time to go really radical - ground y'self! I'm really not joking, surely we as a complex biochemical organism are producing electrical currents and potentials, our whole nervous system a complicated series of battery-like stored/discharged energies etc. WE are the most promising component of all to ground.
Put that to Miguel, and ask if he can make up something special for this most uber of tweaks.

spirit, Wilson Cheng referenced the "polluted" electronic noise environment (brought about partly by living in close quarters) in Asia as one reason why grounding is sonically dramatic there, and I am sure the same applies to you and others in the UK. The room idea is loony tunes stuff and will most likely not come to pass. As for grounding the subject, I wear an electronic shock collar that my wife requested. In that scenario, my skin functions as sink or ground....

Geardaddy · Nov 28, 2014

as an aside, I have external xovers that I will ground along with ICs and SW that have grounding leads. Should be an interesting experiment once it commences....

TBG · Nov 28, 2014

Geardaddy said:
Very interesting TBG. You are a veteran tweaker. I too had the Granite Audio unit. It was effective for ground loops and dropped the noise floor to a modest degree. Great company. I owned their CDP at one time.

Have you tried the Synergistic's treatments for subpanel switches? I have a friend who swears by that treatment.

What is most startling to me about all this subject is the fact (experiential fact) that a system can be rendered more 3D and holographic by ancillary/tweak components that many people don't believe in....

I love this comment. I have constantly had those who think I'm crazy, but I think that many manufacturers, reviewers, and audiophiles cannot hear or at least values aspects of music reproduction that I don't value. Having music with little high end and with a warm midrange doesn't float my boat. I hear enormous differences between cables, speaker wires, and power cords. In reality I find the magic of realism that I hear to be very fragile. I have looked at my ac on a scope and seen what hash there is evident there, including modulation which is the power companies communicating with each other.

My Stillpoint rack being on the Troy Signature didn't add much. But perhaps using the Troy SE grounding wire might be impressive.

My wife about twenty years ago, threw me out of her living room saying that she wanted to get rid of the laboratory, prompting our buying a house with a big game room on the second floor. She virtually never comes into this room.

Finally, I think that a faraday cage would be great for music reproduction and even thought of installing copper mesh around the room, but I have to realize that this would be costly to install as well as to remove to sell the house. I also thought of doing that around my equipment, but a seminar at the VSAC conference many years ago suggested that copper mesh is not enough shielding. I gave up this idea also.

Geardaddy · Nov 28, 2014

TBG said:
My wife about twenty years ago, threw me out of her living room saying that she wanted to get rid of the laboratory, prompting our buying a house with a big game room on the second floor. She virtually never comes into this room.

Ahhh, the lab. Sounds like my world and my wife.

I will pimp Robert and the Starsound gang more about grounding the their stands. The Stillpoints use a loose hybrid of materials, including a Delrin termination, so I am not surprised they don't work with grounding. I know Miguel also uses a hybrid of materials which probably explains his findings.

The Faraday cage room would be fascinating.....

TBG · Nov 28, 2014

Hmm, I have the Star Sound Apprentices under my Koda and my BMC M2 monoblocks. All three of these have Silver wire grounds, but I could also run grounds to the Apprentices. I will try that tomorrow. I wonder how I can connect the ground to the Apprentice. I guess since I only use three points, I could just put it between the Audio Points and the platform. But this would not be grounding the steel platform because of the finish on it.

Geardaddy · Nov 28, 2014

TBG said:
Hmm, I have the Star Sound Apprentices under my Koda and my BMC M2 monoblocks. All three of these have Silver wire grounds, but I could also run grounds to the Apprentices. I will try that tomorrow. I wonder how I can connect the ground to the Apprentice. I guess since I only use three points, I could just put it between the Audio Points and the platform. But this would not be grounding the steel platform because of the finish on it.

Correct. You attach it to the audio point. I am not sure what to say about the finish. That is a question for Robert as SS

TBG · Nov 28, 2014

I'll take a meter to one tomorrow also. But I still wonder about the steel platform.

Geardaddy · Nov 29, 2014

TBG said:
I'll take a meter to one tomorrow also. But I still wonder about the steel platform.

I fired out a question to Robert....

Geardaddy · Nov 29, 2014

Norman, here is verbiage from Tom at SS:

If you had a Sistrum or Back Stage the ground could be attached to the integral shelf crimp bolt. You could ground the component and also the shelf to the same bolt. And then onto a dedicated ground device. You could also do this to an Apprentice or to a Rhythm shelf. These would have to be altered and then the value at resale may drop.The protective surface finish would have to removed for highest conductivity. Removal of the finish may expose the material to corrosion and then less conductivity. Some conductive/gel agent maybe applied to this unprotected area..like when you purchase a replacement battery and they want to sell you a small package of goo to put on the terminals. There has to be a much better conductive gel maybe as described here..http://news.stanford.edu/news/2012/june/printable-electrical-hydrogel-062712.html Really Good Goo...

Tom

Geardaddy · Nov 29, 2014

Tom's idea of the conducive gel is a good one. I have a conductive paste that I have toyed with and will try that....

TBG · Nov 29, 2014

I am going to use my meter today and see what is going on. I know that annodized aluminum's surface is conductive. Therefore the chassis of an aluminum component would not be grounded through the Audio Points to the Apprentice shelf. I really don't expect much from grounding the shelves, but I will give doing so a try.

LL21 · Nov 29, 2014

TBG said:
I am going to use my meter today and see what is going on. I know that annodized aluminum's surface is conductive. Therefore the chassis of an aluminum component would not be grounded through the Audio Points to the Apprentice shelf. I really don't expect much from grounding the shelves, but I will give doing so a try.

would be interesting to learn what is going on before/after Tripoint from a measurement perspective...

Geardaddy · Nov 29, 2014

TBG said:
I am going to use my meter today and see what is going on. I know that annodized aluminum's surface is conductive. Therefore the chassis of an aluminum component would not be grounded through the Audio Points to the Apprentice shelf. I really don't expect much from grounding the shelves, but I will give doing so a try.

I forgotten that the BMC stuff was aluminum. I remember discussing that issue with Robert at Starsound and the mechanical or vibrational grounding permutations of it.

Tripoint troy signature grounding device

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