Entreq Tellus grounding,in england

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Folsom and others, in case you're interested in pursuing studying of grounding and clean power, there's a thread over at CA which is chock-full of fantastic information from the likes of Speedskater and many others, and at one point we discuss the Entreq device, which I had read a lot about on WBF thanks to SpiritOfMusic and others (and by thanks I really mean to say 'Thank you' to WBF and all these guys because without those who try these controversial solutions and provide their listening impressions, there would be no further investigation and learning):

AC Filtering, Grounding Boxes, Linear PSU and Balanced Power.

In fact, I am back at reading that very same thread because of all the info we amassed over there, some of which are my own posts for reference as I head into finishing my DIY AC Filtering box. Of course, just avoid the trollish posts to get to the gold (many great posts from members and also many links to essential papers).

Looks like your having fun, I use balance power. It's worth noting that it can up the overall gain of your system. It's not the end either, I use other devices too. Anyway it's great to hear you enjoying getting hands on!
 
I didn't see any pics of your filter. There also wasn't any SOTA information. But it all depends how long you've been working on such things.

Here's one I made for a friend. It doesn't have kitty litter, so maybe there's room for improvement.

pcredo 004.jpg
 
Looks like your having fun, I use balance power. Anyway it's great to hear you enjoying getting hands on!

Lots of fun to study, learn and build and actually get excellent concrete results shared by all who listen here from DIY, usually meaning some effort but little material expense.
 
I didn't see any pics of your filter. There also wasn't any SOTA information.

Don't know who you're asking for pics, but if you haven't found SOTA information in what I provided you, spend more time - it would take someone literally weeks to go through all the material.

Here's one I made for a friend. It doesn't have kitty litter, so maybe there's room for improvement.

Caelin Gabriel also uses a material in his products for passive ground cleanup, would you call that a derogatory 'kitty litter' too? if so, do let him know, he's on this forum.

What's going on in your filter there?

Looks to me that you have transformer-only isolation for some of the sockets and the others are Transformer + Chokes?

What do you think are the results of placing your transformers and your chokes so physically close together in that box?

Additionally, I see you're using large black 'tubes' on the right and smaller ones on the left. What are these, Bybees?
 
Don't know who you're asking for pics, but if you haven't found SOTA information in what I provided you, spend more time - it would take someone literally weeks to go through all the material.



Caelin Gabriel also uses a material in his products for passive ground cleanup, would you call that a derogatory 'kitty litter' too? if so, do let him know, he's on this forum.

What's going on in your filter there?

Looks to me that you have transformer-only isolation for some of the sockets and the others are Transformer + Chokes?

What do you think are the results of placing your transformers and your chokes so physically close together in that box?

Additionally, I see you're using large black 'tubes' on the right and smaller ones on the left. What are these, Bybees?

I thought saying kitty litter was comical. It's a joke.

I was hoping for pictures. You said you were led to building one.

There's no transformers in that. So I've got no concern...

And yes he wanted Bybees.

At any time I'm looking for new information. However a few weeks of looking at what I've seen for years isn't doing me any favors. I've been at this for awhile... Right now I'm looking at making commercial units for various industries; once I can finalize a few things depending on application.
 
Here's one I made for a friend. It doesn't have kitty litter, so maybe there's room for improvement.

View attachment 25732
How about creating a new thread and describing your approach and what is in it? I don't for example recognize the feed through black tubes for the right two outlets. Are they large value series resistors that are painted black?
 
Agreed, twud be most interesting.

Come on Amir keep up! " And yes he wanted Bybees "
 
Sorry about that, I get a bit excited when power conditioning comes up. Back to the Entreq.
 
I didn't see any pics of your filter. There also wasn't any SOTA information. But it all depends how long you've been working on such things.

Here's one I made for a friend. It doesn't have kitty litter, so maybe there's room for improvement.

View attachment 25732

Is that CSA or ETL approved?
 
Sorry about that, I get a bit excited when power conditioning comes up. Back to the Entreq.
NO worries. I do love to see a thread dedicated to DIY power solutions. Do you mind going first and creating that in the Power forum? :)
 
I don't know the fine details, but some engineers put more effort into SOTA grounding techniques than others. I can imagine the gear from the manufacturers who put more attention into this would be less affected by these grounding devices.

That is most certainly true. There is a lot of variability there....
 
"Nothing there" because the software was deficient or because there was truly nothing there? A lot of the links are dead including the report from Acuity.
It was some simple measurement with a PC sound card without good protocol. The expert turned out to not be one and just ordinary engineer from what I recall.
 
Why do we have the above picture attached to every quote ?
 
Hi all again.

In an attempt to address the shortcomings of using a "live vinyl LP" as the source for the "with and without Entreq" comparisons, I have been very hard at work this past 36 hours producing "digital" comparisons instead. Although I accept the criticism in general that vinyl sound will always vary from play to play, I will always maintain that in this particular case those variances did not substantially effect the actual sonic result in the case where critical ears are used to make judgements (I have never heard the playback of a given vinyl LP on a good quality system vary to anywhere near the extent demonstrated in those earlier Entreq comparison files, despite comments to the contrary by other parties). Neverthless, this "digital" comparison ostensibly eliminates those potential variables.

It has been a huge amount of work to do this second comparison, including spending some hours completely re-configuring my workstation, choosing and preparing the source files, etc to be able to complete this test - I effectively had to re-cable it and make a large number of configuration changes to enable it to record directly from the analogue output produced from a 24 bit digital source (my system was built to transcribe from analogue - not from digital. Not that it cannot do it - of course it can - but it is not set-up to do that sort of stuff on a day to day basis because that is not what I do). So I hope this work is appreciated as it was VERY time consuming - not just the work itself but preparing the files for upload, documenting them and uploading them on my Australian Mickey Mouse internet connection.

I have included a "notes.txt" file in the upload so there is no real need to clutter this post and thread with the specifics. But it contains the acknowledgements of (and links to) the source material and also contains listening "tips" so that inexperienced and / or novice listeners can more easily "tune in" to what they need to listen for in order to hear the differences. As with any comparisons, the higher quality and more resolving the playback system and the more developed your listening skills, the more obvious the differences between the Entreq / No Entreq files will become. There will be some listeners here who I already know will "breeze" through these comparisons (three of them excluding myself have already previously contributed to this thread) and some listeners who I suspect won't hear a difference at all (I really have to get this bit off my chest - perhaps less time spent sitting in front of computer screens and obsessing with measurements, audio stats and FFT screens and more time spent actually listening critically may contribute to improved listening skills...just a suggestion).

One thing I will add to this post that was only briefly touched on in the enclosed notes.txt. This test was actually quite enlightening to me (from a measurement perspective no less!!) because this time around there was a quantifiable difference in the noise floors - with and without the Entreq box connected. This is where the digital test shines over the LP test because this time around I could actually feed pure digital "zeros" in a 24 bit file from a 24 bit DAC and then record the corresponding output. Previously I was not recording pure digital "silence". This time I was.

Below are two interesting screen shots showing the sound of "digital silence" as recorded from the DAC playing back 24 bits of nothingness:

Without the Entreq box connected:

noise_no_entreq.png


And with the Entreq box connected:

noise_entreq.png


I will just close by saying I won't be doing any more comparisons. It is extremely time consuming and exhausting plus all this endless typing and keyboard work is aggravating my chronic pain...I have a cat to feed and housework to do :) Apart from that I am not really keen on continually connecting and disconnecting the Entreq box. I don't really think the connectors are built to withstand such heavy duty use.

But I hope these comparisons are useful. Bottom line is this. If you genuinely cannot hear the differences between these digital comparison files then there is no further need for you to consider Entreq products. If you can hear the differences then in my opinion what you are hearing is typical of what these products can achieve when you install them in a system used for real-time critical listening. Remember too that these tests were performed just with the basic Minimus box, however the cable is a few up in the range (it is their top-of-the-line copper cable).

Being extremely critical, although the files "with Entreq" are closer in sound to the input files than the files "without Entreq", the "Entreq" files in my opinion are a little bit less focussed - perhaps they are a bit too "soft" sounding whereas the files without Entreq go too far in the "metallic / hard sounding" direction that typifies that "16 bit CD sound" most of us grew to hate in the 1980s. Based upon my previous experiences demoing Entreq equipment, however, the silver boxes would address this minor shortcoming, though it is at the expense of musical "warmth" (even Entreq say that themselves). Also, unfortunately I was unable to use a very high quality cable between the DAC output and the ADC input. Normally I use Wireworld Reference cabling and higher end Audioquest cables but I did not have anything high quality on hand so had to use a typical electronics store cable. That in itself will very slightly soften and de-focus the sound compared to something like a Wireworld or Audioquest. Still, that cable was used for every single test so again the only difference is the Entreq box. I would have loved to use a Wireworld or Audioquest cable but I certainly wasn't going to spend $500 just to make a point. I could buy another Entreq cable or base level box for that same money!!

Oh, and for the sake of completeness, in these digital comparisons, the Entreq box was connected to an un-used SPDIF RCA output jack residing on the DAC card from which I was recording. In my experience if used with source equipment equipped with both analogue or digital RCA outputs, it does not matter a whole lot which connector you use. With my Rega CD player, for example, I will be using the Entreq box connected to the SPDIF jack since the analogue RCAs are obviously being used to transmit the analogue out to the amplifer.
 
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Hi all again.

In an attempt to address the shortcomings of using a "live vinyl LP" as the source for the "with and without Entreq" comparisons, I have been very hard at work this past 36 hours producing "digital" comparisons instead. Although I accept the criticism in general that vinyl sound will always vary from play to play, I will always maintain that in this particular case those variances did not substantially effect the actual sonic result in the case where critical ears are used to make judgements (I have never heard the playback of a given vinyl LP on a good quality system vary to anywhere near the extent demonstrated in those earlier Entreq comparison files, despite comments to the contrary by other parties). Neverthless, this "digital" comparison ostensibly eliminates those potential variables.

It has been a huge amount of work to do this second comparison, including spending some hours completely re-configuring my workstation, choosing and preparing the source files, etc to be able to complete this test - I effectively had to re-cable it and make a large number of configuration changes to enable it to record directly from the analogue output produced from a 24 bit digital source (my system was built to transcribe from analogue - not from digital. Not that it cannot do it - of course it can - but it is not set-up to do that sort of stuff on a day to day basis because that is not what I do). So I hope this work is appreciated as it was VERY time consuming - not just the work itself but preparing the files for upload, documenting them and uploading them on my Australian Mickey Mouse internet connection.

I have included a "notes.txt" file in the upload so there is no real need to clutter this post and thread with the specifics. But it contains the acknowledgements of (and links to) the source material and also contains listening "tips" so that inexperienced and / or novice listeners can more easily "tune in" to what they need to listen for in order to hear the differences. As with any comparisons, the higher quality and more resolving the playback system and the more developed your listening skills, the more obvious the differences between the Entreq / No Entreq files will become. There will be some listeners here who I already know will "breeze" through these comparisons (three of them excluding myself have already previously contributed to this thread) and some listeners who I suspect won't hear a difference at all (I really have to get this bit off my chest - perhaps less time spent sitting in front of computer screens and obsessing with measurements, audio stats and FFT screens and more time spent actually listening critically may contribute to improved listening skills...just a suggestion).

One thing I will add to this post that was only briefly touched on in the enclosed notes.txt. This test was actually quite enlightening to me (from a measurement perspective no less!!) because this time around there was a quantifiable difference in the noise floors - with and without the Entreq box connected. This is where the digital test shines over the LP test because this time around I could actually feed pure digital "zeros" in a 24 bit file from a 24 bit DAC and then record the corresponding output. Previously I was not recording pure digital "silence". This time I was.

Below are two interesting screen shots showing the sound of "digital silence" as recorded from the DAC playing back 24 bits of nothingness:

Without the Entreq box connected:

View attachment 25767


And with the Entreq box connected:

View attachment 25768


I will just close by saying I won't be doing any more comparisons. It is extremely time consuming and exhausting plus all this endless typing and keyboard work is aggravating my chronic pain...I have a cat to feed and housework to do :) Apart from that I am not really keen on continually connecting and disconnecting the Entreq box. I don't really think the connectors are built to withstand such heavy duty use.

But I hope these comparisons are useful. Bottom line is this. If you genuinely cannot hear the differences between these digital comparison files then there is no further need for you to consider Entreq products. If you can hear the differences then in my opinion what you are hearing is typical of what these products can achieve when you install them in a system used for real-time critical listening. Remember too that these tests were performed just with the basic Minimus box, however the cable is a few up in the range (it is their top-of-the-line copper cable).

Being extremely critical, although the files "with Entreq" are closer in sound to the input files than the files "without Entreq", the "Entreq" files in my opinion are a little bit less focussed - perhaps they are a bit too "soft" sounding whereas the files without Entreq go too far in the "metallic / hard sounding" direction that typifies that "16 bit CD sound" most of us grew to hate in the 1980s. Based upon my previous experiences demoing Entreq equipment, however, the silver boxes would address this minor shortcoming, though it is at the expense of musical "warmth" (even Entreq say that themselves). Also, unfortunately I was unable to use a very high quality cable between the DAC output and the ADC input. Normally I use Wireworld Reference cabling and higher end Audioquest cables but I did not have anything high quality on hand so had to use a typical electronics store cable. That in itself will very slightly soften and de-focus the sound compared to something like a Wireworld or Audioquest. Still, that cable was used for every single test so again the only difference is the Entreq box. I would have loved to use a Wireworld or Audioquest cable but I certainly wasn't going to spend $500 just to make a point. I could buy another Entreq cable or base level box for that same money!!

Oh, and for the sake of completeness, in these digital comparisons, the Entreq box was connected to an un-used SPDIF RCA output jack residing on the DAC card from which I was recording. In my experience if used with source equipment equipped with both analogue or digital RCA outputs, it does not matter a whole lot which connector you use. With my Rega CD player, for example, I will be using the Entreq box connected to the SPDIF jack since the analogue RCAs are obviously being used to transmit the analogue out to the amplifer.

Fiddle,

Im sorry ( I'm feeling a bit mean) but your system has an issue with noise. I dont want to speculate as to where the problem lies as I know nothing about your system. However it looks like you are picking up multiples of mains harmonics at a very high level and there is a lot of noise at 5kHz. With a DAC playing silence you should just not see this Im afraid, even with cheap cables. This is the noise floor of my MDAC playing silence for comparison. You are only achieving about 16 bits of "nothingness"). Even I cant escape a bit of mains pick up but its down at -150dB, you are at about -95 dB.

You need to figure out what the fundamental problem is first before looking at what the Entreq may or may not be doing. The Entreq is a Red Herring.

I have set my FFT parameters to match yours as this will affect the noise floor level (FFT gain).

fiddle.jpg
 
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