Yet another groundbox, but this Setchi is quite special

Kingsrule said:

I ordered 4 Setchi's on Monday, 10/30 and they arrived today, 11/2......outstanding service.

Sonic report soon......

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marty said:

Interesting- I got a PM from Edward last week who said he was in the NY area for two weeks and he would like to come by for me to try the Setchi devices. I wrote him back and said sure, but would it be OK if I tried them blinded? I never heard from him again. Disappointing.

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marty said:

Interesting- I got a PM from Edward last week who said he was in the NY area for two weeks and he would like to come by for me to try the Setchi devices. I wrote him back and said sure, but would it be OK if I tried them blinded? I never heard from him again. Disappointing.

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EuroDriver said:

Hi Marty,

I did not get a PM reply and I just checked my gmail Junk folder and also no e-mail from you.

I have no problem with blind tests although I personally do not use them as I don't have the patience. I also know that sighted tests by a typical audience can be fooled and I personally have been fooled by sighted tests but not that often.

I will also state unequivocally that Setchi's don't work everywhere. There is one customer with two stereo systems, one at home and one in the office. The Setchi's work in one place but not the other.

I am sending you a PM with my schedule, and lets see if we can meet up. I am interested to discuss with you what you think might be going on in the field of grounding boxes and to have an exchange of thoughts about possible theories.

Best Regards,

Ed

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GaryProtein said:

You weren't surprised were you?

If all these tweeks worked, the recordings would be better than the live performance.

It just baffles me that manufacturers of $5000, $10,000, $50,000+ components wouldn't include these and other little tweeks as integral parts of the component's design if they were genuinely needed or if they actually did something other than make you feel better that you spent the money on it in the hopes of getting some improvement.

I seriously doubt that a box filled with sand, sawdust and metal filings can do better than a properly star-grounded system.

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CKKeung said:

3) Different kinds of grounding treatment have already been installed in some of these 5 systems (Tripoint Troy Signature, Telos electrical groundbox, Synergistic Research GroundBlocks ...etc) yet Setchi D2-usb can still produce additional improvements. Is it possible that diff groundboxes are handling diff noises?

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GaryProtein said:

If all these tweeks worked, the recordings would be better than the live performance.

It just baffles me that manufacturers of $5000, $10,000, $50,000+ components wouldn't include these and other little tweeks as integral parts of the component's design if they were genuinely needed or if they actually did something other than make you feel better that you spent the money on it in the hopes of getting some improvement.

I seriously doubt that a box filled with sand, sawdust and metal filings can do better than a properly star-grounded system.

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microstrip said:

Very interested to have your feedback - what types did you get?

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GaryProtein said:

(...) I seriously doubt that a box filled with sand, sawdust and metal filings can do better than a properly star-grounded system.

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Kingsrule said:

I got 2 A2's for my amps and 2 D2's for my digital

For the first 2 hours, things sounded pretty disappointing..kinda of veiled/muffled. Really strange. Then things changed rapidly. Different sonic areas started going good/fair/good, almost like a sine wave across the musical spectrum. After 4 hours or so things got pretty level. And improved. Most noticeable is clarity and foundation. Today its even better. Listening to The Wall right now...not the greatest album for sonics but its so much clearer today....especially turned up.....the harshness at loud volume is gone! Pretty impressive.....

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marty said:

Gary,
I must admit, I would have less interest if it weren't for the fact a lot of good listeners think there just might be something to these ground devices. My bias is that without any unusual accoutrements, there is often a small DC voltage difference (mV) between gear chassis and line ground even with star-grounded systems. Connecting a modest cable between the chassis and line ground (even the cover plate screw), absolutely causes the voltmeter to read "0". (Roger recommends using large copper gauqe arc welding cable for this purpose such as 4 or even 2 gauge!). Two minor caveats. First, even though most gear circuit board grounds are attached to chassis grounds, I don't understand why such voltage is there to begin with. Second, I'm not sure that "0" mV doesn't mean there couldn't be microvolt or nanovolt differences the meter is not sensitive enough to detect even on the lowest scale setting. That said, I do think my sound has improved albeit nominally as a result of that inexpensive exercise. I'm not sure how much more blood can be extracted from that stone with Entreqs/Tripoint/Setchi but I'm willing to be convinced. The bottom line, I'm interested in trying some of these devices, but will certainly not spend money to buy one without trying one first.
Marty

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Tango said:

Dear Sir,

You are a very open minded person. I am one of the happy users of these devises. Iam not going to try to convince anyone to use them. Like I have said before elsewhere, I would opt for a diy approach to manage grounding if 1) I know how to do it effectively like RogerD 2) my premises allow me to do (my listening room is in an office building and 3) if it could provide the kind of realism, the sound as dimensional object like they way some of these devices do to my system at the moment. I did try changing equipments many many times. Amps, preamps, phonos, tts., cables. Not once did I get big sound improvement in realism like putting these devices in. The two reasons that keep us debate how silly these kitten litter boxes are (as one may say), is because of its exorbitant price and the fact that you are unlikely to hvae a chance to demo in your own system. Look at CS footers for example, 300 bucks a pop and the most skeptics audiophiles in this forum jumped in a second. This is an interesting hobby where we upgrade an amp from $20,000 to $50,000 to get the sq improvement the size of an orange, but our perception of kitten litter box get in our way so much we say bye bye to the sound improvement the size of a melon.

Just an opinion from a silly fool.

Tang

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Tango said:

Please stop Master Tang me Mike.

I am very embarassed when you say that because I dont have white hair long white beard and hold a stick. I on the other hand would be happy to be your humble silly fool student, Sifu Mike.

Tang

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Kingsrule said:

I got 2 A2's for my amps and 2 D2's for my digital

For the first 2 hours, things sounded pretty disappointing..kinda of veiled/muffled. Really strange. Then things changed rapidly. Different sonic areas started going good/fair/good, almost like a sine wave across the musical spectrum. After 4 hours or so things got pretty level. And improved. Most noticeable is clarity and foundation. Today its even better. Listening to The Wall right now...not the greatest album for sonics but its so much clearer today....especially turned up.....the harshness at loud volume is gone! Pretty impressive.....

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Jazzhead said:

Pink Floyd .. The Wall ? I 'll have to disagree on the sonics part . It's just a spectacular album , sonically and musically . Are you referring to the LP , I am able to derive much pleasure from its lowly redbook CD.

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