Noise. That damned demon you may not even know about...
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Benchmark's "Clean Audio Installation Guide
This 24 page guide has been very popular. It has been hailed as “required reading for all broadcast engineers” by Richard Sequerra.“We were able to change our engineering standards throughout the CBC as a result of this paper.” - Tom Holden Manager, Systems Engineering - Radio, CBC Toronto.
This paper revolutionized broadcast audio in the 1980's. It moved the industry away from 600-Ohm interfaces and radically changed the way analog audio was handled in professional environments.
In many ways, this paper still impacts every product that Benchmark builds today. We think that you will find this classic paper as useful today as it was when it was originally published in the 1980's. Due to the popularity of this paper, Allen updated it several times. The links will take you to Allen's final 1997 version.
We agree with Richard Sequerra. This is your required reading assignment!
RG. One of the things that you’ve talked about is consistency across systems, especially when it comes to supports, cleaning materials or fluids and torque settings on fixings. Although you don’t sell equipment or accessories, do you think that the importance of consistency extends into component choice?
ST. In my experience, the better the company, the clearer and more consistent the thoughts and philosophy behind its products. That takes many forms, from selecting components or choosing topologies, right through to materials and construction. But one thing I feel is particularly critical is the attitude of the engineering team to electrical ground. I have a sneaking suspicion that synergy between components is largely down to similarities in their treatment of ground and their ground potential. If you have two products with very different ground potentials, noise will flow onto ground and we all know how much damage that can do. It helps explain why products that might be individually excellent don’t or won’t work together.
RG. One of the things that you’ve talked about is consistency across systems, especially when it comes to supports, cleaning materials or fluids and torque settings on fixings. Although you don’t sell equipment or accessories, do you think that the importance of consistency extends into component choice?
ST. In my experience, the better the company, the clearer and more consistent the thoughts and philosophy behind its products. That takes many forms, from selecting components or choosing topologies, right through to materials and construction. But one thing I feel is particularly critical is the attitude of the engineering team to electrical ground. I have a sneaking suspicion that synergy between components is largely down to similarities in their treatment of ground and their ground potential. If you have two products with very different ground potentials, noise will flow onto ground and we all know how much damage that can do. It helps explain why products that might be individually excellent don’t or won’t work together.
Taking that further, use electronics from the same engineering team and you have a much better chance of having a consistent approach to ground. Mix and match components and you have little or no idea how they’ll combine until you try it – and even then, the true nature of a combination only emerges over time. So, sticking to a single brand is certainly the percentage play, your best chance of success. When it comes to cables and power cables in particular, it’s crazy important – because you need to offer equal ground potential across the system, to establish a single, consistent ground plane. Just using the same length power cables connected to a single star-grounding point is a major step in the right direction.
ST. In my experience, the better the company, the clearer and more consistent the thoughts and philosophy behind its products. That takes many forms, from selecting components or choosing topologies, right through to materials and construction. But one thing I feel is particularly critical is the attitude of the engineering team to electrical ground. I have a sneaking suspicion that synergy between components is largely down to similarities in their treatment of ground and their ground potential. If you have two products with very different ground potentials, noise will flow onto ground and we all know how much damage that can do. It helps explain why products that might be individually excellent don’t or won’t work together.
RG. One of the things that you’ve talked about is consistency across systems, especially when it comes to supports, cleaning materials or fluids and torque settings on fixings. Although you don’t sell equipment or accessories, do you think that the importance of consistency extends into component choice?
ST. In my experience, the better the company, the clearer and more consistent the thoughts and philosophy behind its products. That takes many forms, from selecting components or choosing topologies, right through to materials and construction. But one thing I feel is particularly critical is the attitude of the engineering team to electrical ground. I have a sneaking suspicion that synergy between components is largely down to similarities in their treatment of ground and their ground potential. If you have two products with very different ground potentials, noise will flow onto ground and we all know how much damage that can do. It helps explain why products that might be individually excellent don’t or won’t work together.
Taking that further, use electronics from the same engineering team and you have a much better chance of having a consistent approach to ground. Mix and match components and you have little or no idea how they’ll combine until you try it – and even then, the true nature of a combination only emerges over time. So, sticking to a single brand is certainly the percentage play, your best chance of success. When it comes to cables and power cables in particular, it’s crazy important – because you need to offer equal ground potential across the system, to establish a single, consistent ground plane. Just using the same length power cables connected to a single star-grounding point is a major step in the right direction.
you can see Benchmark, FM Acoustics, Russandrews and Stirling Trayle speak about importance of "ground".
1- All equipments (transport, DAC, Pre, Power) should be star grounded (with equal length ground cables) with low impedance ground cable.
2- no ground loop in the system
3- the ground noise of each equipment should be as low as possible (it means ac power quality should be good, building earth quality should be good, both circuit and psu design of each equipment should be good, ac polarity should be proper)
1- All equipments (transport, DAC, Pre, Power) should be star grounded (with equal length ground cables) with low impedance ground cable.
2- no ground loop in the system
3- the ground noise of each equipment should be as low as possible (it means ac power quality should be good, building earth quality should be good, both circuit and psu design of each equipment should be good, ac polarity should be proper)
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Yes, but not all components have AC ground connected to their chassis, for example. So just connecting to a screw on the chassis does not do much, unless that screw is connected to AC ground. It is easy to check with a voltmeter. Shunyata talks about this with their ALTAIRA ground system.
some companies have a switch (connect or disconnect chassis ground to signal ground) but most companies connect the chassis ground to signal ground.
please let me know which company does not connect chassis ground to signal ground?
Metaxas for one.
Quite a few do not.
Trinnov may not, not sure.
JVC laser projector NZ9
Another issue is XLR cable wiring is far from being consistent. There are no standards, none that are followed anyway. How your XLR is wired, and how the components want it to be wired, can be a source of noise and component damage.
Pin 1 - connected to (a) Pin 1, (b) cable shield, (c) XLR connector chassis.
You can have none of the above, all of the above, or a combination of the above. If the cable does not match what both upstream and downstream components expect, you are likely adding noise.
most high end companies connect chassis ground to signal ground.
the xlr wiring of neutrik is recommended by benchmark audio. neutrik solved the pin1 problem
I agree that proper ground posts should be standard on all components / power supplies.
Doesn't Neutrik just make connectors? You have to be careful how you wire those connectors together and how the two components expect the wiring to be done for max performance.
I blew a tweeter by not having the proper XLR cable wiring connecting my pre-amp to power amp (and both were made by the same company).
Doesn't Neutrik just make connectors? You have to be careful how you wire those connectors together and how the two components expect the wiring to be done for max performance.
I blew a tweeter by not having the proper XLR cable wiring connecting my pre-amp to power amp (and both were made by the same company).
Pin 1 should be connected to all of the above on female connector and only to pin 1 on the male connector.
I have often written about resonance and vibration in these columns. Check out my posts. I did so because addressing these issues delivered much more listening pleasure in my system. I just wanted other audiophiles to know that they do not need to forever upgrade their systems with costly new equipment. Carefully addressing resonance and vibration issues can offer much better results at a fraction of the price of an equipment upgrade route. And it will greatly benefit upgrades too.
I lost the address to a brilliant recent podcast which "convincingly" demolishes all resonance and vibration tweaks from an electrical engineer's perspective. And yet, I personally apply each of these tweaks in my system with brilliant acoustical results. At a fraction of the cost of expensive equipment upgrades. Trust your ears. Enjoy the music.
I lost the address to a brilliant recent podcast which "convincingly" demolishes all resonance and vibration tweaks from an electrical engineer's perspective. And yet, I personally apply each of these tweaks in my system with brilliant acoustical results. At a fraction of the cost of expensive equipment upgrades. Trust your ears. Enjoy the music.
If you are streaming, an obvious area of improvement is upstream components. I assumed the Shunyata Denali power distributor had already lowered the electrical noise and inter-component noise to levels that would be hard to improve. Therefore, all my attention was upstream. The X upgrade to the Denali was therefore a surprise, in a good way.
Does the task of eliminating noise never end? Apparently, not. We simply maximize one area and move on.
Does the task of eliminating noise never end? Apparently, not. We simply maximize one area and move on.
I read the guide. The first few pages are the only pages that capture my attention as that is a field I am interested in. Those pages seem to be a copy of Grounding and Shielding Techniques in Instrumentation, Ralph Morrison,. I have the book and have talked about his techniques in the past.
The author was not very clear on if he was using a isolated ground duplex or not. And he was calling out a #14 or larger ground wire. NEC would say it has to be a #12 or larger. He also had nothing to talk about twisting wire which Bill Whitlock went over extensively, and it matters. I have measured many branch wires and a twisted hot and neutral with a loose ground can read 0 mV of potential between the ground and neutral out past 70 feet of branch wire at the duplex when done right. He kept talking about a star ground which you can't do in a panel. And said nothing about how you should land the wires in a panel. Outside stay on the same phase. He did not address what sort of panel you should get. There are numerous choices. And when this was written, you could select all copper panels from SqD in the NQ line. Crickets on that subject. And it matters.
Quickly he got into balanced cabling which my stereo is not. A lot of it looked like Ralph Morrison's book again. I did like how he was using a cap and resistors at the load end of a balanced interconnect to minimize the cable shield from becoming an antenna.
I would also point out, I am a big Torus fan. I tell everyone you should get one. If your running a high power stereo with many branch wires to the room, you should have a single high power Torus with a all copper distribution panel behind it. That is what the author stated also. That is what Art Kelm of Ground One has done in maybe 250 recording studio around the world. Its is a know, effective and documented technique to isolate the audio system from the rest of the world, It is by no means a brick wall. Many will want to add additional filters as needed for particular pieces of equipment. But it is a foundation piece that works extremely well. Yes I am a dealer. But I'm not really working, so I am more a unpaid advocate.
All in all if you had a balanced system and followed the guide, you would end up with a low noise stereo. Its a good guide. I can also see a little better why a external ground box may work well. They have always bothered me as they are a parallel path for parasitic noise to travel in the system. I don't really get how they work. But enough people have them and swear by them so they must work. FWIW, I have tried the basic lashing of ground studs from equipment to a star point with all sorts of gauges and wire materials. As well as bonding that the earth or not. I have never heard a thing. I only tied one very low $$$ ground device and it did nothing. I have never tried and Entreq or Shunyata. I have avoided Shunyata because a few people told me $4000 invested in it did little. You had to drop more like $17,000 or more into the ground equipment before it really became a notable improvement. If you have too much money and don't want to die with it, get a large assortment of Shunyata ground devices and cables and give it a try. I would wager in favor of it reducing noise effectively.
Edit
I forgot to add something. The author and many other places you hear people saying get the utility to change the transformer. Thats an idea. But I don't think it's as good an idea as placing a all copper NQ subpanel at the room. Then feeding a Torus from that subpanel. Then using a all copper Benjamin to feed circuits for audio around the room. You want the SqD NQ subpanel as you also want a couple circuits that are not through the isolation transformer. You don't know. You want options.
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Also per that article. You want a audio dealer that is going to cable correctly. As in, use Mogami and apply the resistors and capacitors to the interconnects to truly install studio grade wiring. Finding a guy that can do that. Good luck. That is a very skilled electrician. And I being a licensed electrician can tell you, you are not allowed to do work in states other than where you register your journeyman card. A guy from Calif can't do work in NY, Chicago, WA etc. He can work in Calif. Maybe Nevada if he tests in. But never the east coast.
Back to my point. You need a dealer that will install the infrastructure as well as Mogami cable done right first. Then when he comes trying to sell you expensive ass cables, you know you have the foundation correct and can assess accuratly if the cost of esoteric audiophile cables brings any improvement.
Back to my point. You need a dealer that will install the infrastructure as well as Mogami cable done right first. Then when he comes trying to sell you expensive ass cables, you know you have the foundation correct and can assess accuratly if the cost of esoteric audiophile cables brings any improvement.
Are you referring to a Zobel network? And on speakers and/or ICs?
Or are the caps and resistors something to do with power?
...Japanese gear typically has a "floating" ground, not tied to safety ground. Not all, but not uncommon, for example.
If you read the article and look at Ralph Morrisons Grounding and noise reduction, they use caps and resistors on the ungrounded end of the shield on interconnects. I don't think there was much of speaker cable. They don't care as much. It does not get into the signal when recording.
They are also talking about ensuring you have the same standard throughout the system to reduce ground issues. As in all the equipment has the same ground topology and has proper impedance matching
The older stuff did not ground. I don't think the new stuff has a floating ground. To sell into the USA, it would have to be double insulated. I have not done a deep dive, but superficial noticing things, they use a ground mostly now. Lets say that is Luxman, Accuphase, Pioneer, JVC.
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