Star Grounding
- Thread starter Steve Williams
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Steve per Bruce's recommendation, I try to plug as many componenets as possible directly into the wall. I am getting good results. I do have to plug some components into an Isotel circuit breaker/power cube. II don't have enough wall outlets.
Here's a way we can spend even more of our money, High end extension cords!
Here's a way we can spend even more of our money, High end extension cords!
Steve I use star grounding. I have 4 20amp outlets with direct lines, but I also have a 12ga wire from my preamp to the preamp wall outlet center screw. My transport, DAC, sattelite receiver and monoblocks are all tied to my preamp individually with 14ga wire. I tried this with my Vac 140's but the benefit was negated because the Vacs use star grounding. My SS Platinum monoblocks do like the extra wire to the preamp.
If I lift the amp wire it is immediatley noticeable,like throwing a switch. The benifits are more transparency, highs that seem to float in the air, and a overall larger better soundstage. My C200 preamp is easy to do this because it has many screws on the overal chassis. I have never consulted a electronics professional about this, but a cable manufactuer told me that most power conditioners use star grounding.
I had a audiophile friend drop by today and he always comments how the speakers totally dissapear in my system, most impressive.
Roger
btw even though it is noticeable from the start, over about 30 minutes it seems to improve and may continue for a few hours.
If I lift the amp wire it is immediatley noticeable,like throwing a switch. The benifits are more transparency, highs that seem to float in the air, and a overall larger better soundstage. My C200 preamp is easy to do this because it has many screws on the overal chassis. I have never consulted a electronics professional about this, but a cable manufactuer told me that most power conditioners use star grounding.
I had a audiophile friend drop by today and he always comments how the speakers totally dissapear in my system, most impressive.
Roger
btw even though it is noticeable from the start, over about 30 minutes it seems to improve and may continue for a few hours.
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I do too - both mono amps and the sub are on the same power conditioner. Reason being that, placing them in separate conditioners (also outlets) introduces hum, due to ground difference between the different outlets! There is basically ground potential which manifests as hum. Star grounding solves this.
It's not always easy to implement. I have a dedicated 150-ampere, 240vac feed to the amp racks for my sound system. Everything there is star topology, however... my projector, computer workstations and mixing desk are on another branch circuit. Some ground loop hum comes through the HDMI connection to the PJ. But it's way down in -100dB territory and is only audible with the preamp volume cranked past 12 o'clock. I've worked on improving s/n because of the extraordinarily high efficiency of my speakers. Any little ground loop resulted in hum loud enough to hear throughout the entire house. I now have that down to inaudible with the use of careful wiring methods and flipping polarities of plugs on individual amplifiers and other components.
I have in the past on my system but am not now (hard to achieve and not required, at least after some tweaks to eliminate ground loops). It can be difficult to implement correctly, particularly with an audio system, and is not a panacea... I use the idea much more often in test systems at work, where I have much more control over signal and power routing, and is still a pain (and doesn't always help).
Mark -- 150 A @ 240 V!!! Please tell me that's not for your home system...
Mark -- 150 A @ 240 V!!!
Please tell me that's not for your home system... Dear Steve: As almost all of you I have too an electrical dedicated line and a true eart/ground connection. All my electronics are connected to the electrical source in " floating " fashion and only my Phonolinepreamp has direct earth/ground connection. In this way all the system has only one ground reference, works fine.
regards and enjoy the music,
Raul.
regards and enjoy the music,
Raul.
Mark -- 150 A @ 240 V!!!
Uh, yeah, it is. Assuming I had the breaker capacity, the system could top 200A load with sine wave test signal at full power. Each QSC amplifier can pull 92A and the Haflers, in the config I use, can pull close to 20A each.
Scary, Mark, but I bet it sounds great! I'm guessing headroom is not a concern...
Running all ground connections to a single point "master" ground. Think of all the ground wires from all components coming together to a point in the middle like a star with the wires comprising the points. Assuming that point is the lowest-impedance (best) ground, this will minimize interaction among components since all ground current flow away from each other and into the star ground.
HTH - Don
Dear John: This could help you.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...eory/+star+grounding&cd=8&hl=es&ct=clnk&gl=mx
Regards and enjoy the music,
raul.
Scary, Mark, but I bet it sounds great! I'm guessing headroom is not a concern...
It comes in handy when reproducing pyro, gunshots and other very loud sounds at realistic volume levels. The cannons in Telarc's "1812 Overture" are no challenge at all.
Ouch, I remember seeing that old Telarc release. I think my stylus jumped out and ran away after seeing the groves, and my turntable just sat there and shook in fear... Gotta' say, as a musician in the back row (trumpet), ya' gotta' be ready when those things go off in a live performance! - Don
Gotta' say, as a musician in the back row (trumpet), ya' gotta' be ready when those things go off in a live performance! - DonI actually did this when I ran a dedicated line in. Instead of daisy chaining the outlets as is the norm I ran all the outlets to a sub junction box pretty much in the center of the room under the floor and then back to the main panel. So there really shouldn't be more than a couple of feet difference in ground length on these outlets. Overall it seemed to help though I still had to float the ground on the Dreadnaught until going to balanced interconnects.
Hi Les,
One of the biggest catches with a star ground is that the middle of the star has to be by far the best way for all the ground currents to flow. Hopefully you used much larger gauge wire, and/or multiple wires, from that point back to the main panel. When I have done that in the past I actually used the same sort of cable used for lightning rods or booster cables (technically it was a drop line, the type used from the power pole to your house) for that critical run. If not, there can still be significant current sharing (and thus loops) among components.
Another big catch is those unanticipated sneak ground paths through various interconnects in the system. I won't relate all my experiences, but will pass on that it can be very frustrating to implement a killer ground system only to be thwarted by a bunch of single-ended RCA cables hooking everything together.
The length of lines from the components to the star ground should not matter.
Man, this brings back some painful memories of my install days, and why I headed into IC (integrated circuit, not interconnect) design instead of audio... - Don
One of the biggest catches with a star ground is that the middle of the star has to be by far the best way for all the ground currents to flow. Hopefully you used much larger gauge wire, and/or multiple wires, from that point back to the main panel. When I have done that in the past I actually used the same sort of cable used for lightning rods or booster cables (technically it was a drop line, the type used from the power pole to your house) for that critical run. If not, there can still be significant current sharing (and thus loops) among components.
Another big catch is those unanticipated sneak ground paths through various interconnects in the system. I won't relate all my experiences, but will pass on that it can be very frustrating to implement a killer ground system only to be thwarted by a bunch of single-ended RCA cables hooking everything together.
The length of lines from the components to the star ground should not matter.
Man, this brings back some painful memories of my install days, and why I headed into IC (integrated circuit, not interconnect) design instead of audio...
- DonCertainly didn't mean to dredge up painful memories
The whole thing is done with 10 gauge wire on a 20 amp breaker. I agree that using a heavier wire back to the panel would have been ideal for pulling the whole mess down as close to ground as possible. However, I was trying to just get them at the same potential, whether true ground level or not. Figured having it this way would get closer to ideal than the usual string of boxes on a wire. Each box getting a little more resistance from the longer wire run and each connection adding a bit more on top of that. Though now that you mention it tieing the ground to the nice big copper cold water pipe running nearby would be a very easy mod.
I'm really with you on the interconnects. In this particular case though the big player in the system was how Theta did the single ended input into the Dreadnaught. While I think their practice is common it made it a mess in this case. The Dreadnaught is a balanced amp. For single ended they simply tied the RCA ground/shield to the negative portion of the amp instead of inverting the positive RCA input and feeding that to it thus leaving the ground/shield as what it was supposed to be. Of course the amp then cheerfully amplified any garbage on shield and since it wasn't common mode it wasn't canceled. With balanced cables it's all dead quiet background. Have trouble telling there's anything on even with one's ear against the tweeter. Major improvement all in all for that inky black background to play music on.
The whole thing is done with 10 gauge wire on a 20 amp breaker. I agree that using a heavier wire back to the panel would have been ideal for pulling the whole mess down as close to ground as possible. However, I was trying to just get them at the same potential, whether true ground level or not. Figured having it this way would get closer to ideal than the usual string of boxes on a wire. Each box getting a little more resistance from the longer wire run and each connection adding a bit more on top of that. Though now that you mention it tieing the ground to the nice big copper cold water pipe running nearby would be a very easy mod.
I'm really with you on the interconnects. In this particular case though the big player in the system was how Theta did the single ended input into the Dreadnaught. While I think their practice is common it made it a mess in this case. The Dreadnaught is a balanced amp. For single ended they simply tied the RCA ground/shield to the negative portion of the amp instead of inverting the positive RCA input and feeding that to it thus leaving the ground/shield as what it was supposed to be. Of course the amp then cheerfully amplified any garbage on shield and since it wasn't common mode it wasn't canceled. With balanced cables it's all dead quiet background. Have trouble telling there's anything on even with one's ear against the tweeter. Major improvement all in all for that inky black background to play music on.
One of those design decisions I bet have some engineers going "Huh, why the heck did I do that?", I am sure. Happens to us all; my hindsight is often 20-10...
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Yep, been there done that and got multiple tee shirts. Always seemed to make sense at the time.
In this case I expect they figured that anyone buying the thing would run it balanced anyway. Otherwise there's always lifting the ground. (And yes I know why one isn't supposed to do that.) Outside of that one quirk the Dreadnaught is a pretty good amp.
In this case I expect they figured that anyone buying the thing would run it balanced anyway. Otherwise there's always lifting the ground. (And yes I know why one isn't supposed to do that.) Outside of that one quirk the Dreadnaught is a pretty good amp.
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