Tripoint troy signature grounding device

[Audiocrack]

Let me first introduce myself briefly:
- I have been a music lover and audiophile (in this order) for about 30 years
- I listen mainly to classical music
- I visit live concerts on a regular basis and love the velvet sound of the Concertgebouw Orchestra in "het concertgebouw" in Amsterdam in particular
- I have no financial interest in any of the brands I will mention below
- I trust my ears and the ears of a few audio friends and do not believe the current measurement tools are able to explain (in full) what we are hearing and experiencing when listening to music
- I have assembled a couple of high quality audio systems
- One of these systems consists of: Genesis 1.1 loudspeakers, Kondo m1000 mk i preamp (I actually prefer the Kondo m1000 mk i (fully tube power supply) to the Kondo m1000 mk ii (I am not one of the persons who believes that a mark ii version or a new product is necessarily better than the mk i or the previous product), Kondo Gakuoh Push pull power amps (with Western Electric 300b tubes), Dcs Scarlatti four box cd player, Walker Black Diamond mk iii turntable, Lyra Olympos cartridge, Lyra connoisseur 4.2 se phonostage, Kimber black pearl loudspeaker cables and various Kondo interconnects
- I have been working on this system intensively with a friend and technician for about six years. For example, we completely reworked the Genesis 1.1 loudspeakers by inter alia replacing all crossover components by Duelund silver cast capicitors. Furthermore we isolated all hifi components from the Genesis loudspeakers (these speakers are going very low you know) by creating an 'inland' that is not connected to the floor on which the two midrange and two woofer towers are standing. As a last example I mention that my racks are resting on (active isolating) devices from Halcyonics tributing a lot to the quality of the sound.
- Hopefully you forgive me (my arrogance) when I state that this system sounds pretty impressive. For those who are interested I refer to the comments made by Lloyd on this forum after he visited me about four months ago.
- Although the system was performing on a high level I have always been intrigued by the concept of grounding and therefore I recently made the jump and ordered the Tripoint Troy signature and one Tripoint Thor grounding cable. These have been inserted in my system for about one and half month now.
- Was I impressed by what the Tripoint Troy signature was doing? You bet I was! However, I am not going to use the familiar audiophile phrases like eg a lower noise floor (I heard less noise before I started playing!), better (perceived?) dynamics (probably due to the lower noise floor), a deeper soundstage, etc. You can find a technical description of what the Tripoint Troy signaturen is doing on Tripoint Audio website
- No, much more important is to state that it enhanced the musicality in such a way that everythings sounds more natural, more fluid and more pure. It gives you clearly the impression that the mechanical reproductio of the music becomes less obvious.
- in this regard it resembled somewhat my experie

 

[Audiocrack]

Continuing my story:
- In is this regard it resembled somewhat my experience with the Halcyonics devices: more naturalness and purity. The highest honor I can bestow on audio equipment because I want to be able to listen to music for many hours without any fatigue.
- Will it work in every system? I cannot tell as I am not a technician and can only share the experiences in my system with you. In my set up I use 2x2 power amps, that is two dedicated Genesis bass amps and the aforementioned Gakuoh amps. In a system using more than two power amps, certainly if you are using different breeds (solid state for the bass and tubes for the mids and highs), there is always the risk of some 'crosstalk' between the various power amps. The Troy signature is apparently very effective in 'killing' the noise in my set up.
- That said I live in a relative small town. In larger cities with (much?) more EMI/RFI the Troy signature might be even more effective. Furthermore, quite a number of audiophiles all over the world are using the Troy and Troy signature devices. Some of them play with state of the art systems. You seldom see the Troy coming up for sale. Only recently a few used Troys were offered on the internet because the owners wanted to upgrade to the Troy signature. It is highly unlikely that all these audiophiles living all over the world using different audio systems are fooling themselves by inserting the Troy and Troy signatures in their systems, would't you think?
- Should you try grounding your own audio system? Well, that is off course not for me to decide. I can only say that I am extremely happy that I did. I am still amazed what it is doing in my system, a system that I thought was more or less fully 'tweaked out'.
- I know that there are quite a few members who are sceptical about grounding their audio devices. To them I would say: do yourself a favor and just listen to it with an open mind. You might very well be in for a very pleasant surprise and greater audio happiness in the future.
- Lastly, a few members have expressed their views in other posts on the current (ridiculous or even obscene) pricing of high end components. I fully understand what they are saying and off course everybody is free to express his of her opinion about these retail prices. A retail price of usd 14k for the Troy signature is not something we as audiophiles can simply ignore. However, experiencing what the Troy signature is doing in my system and taking into account the impeccable workmanship (the unit looks absolutely stunning, in particular the wood is very impressive) please allow me to remark the following to people who have never heard the Troy signature: try to listen to it in your own system or another audio set up before you pass any judgments.

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

Welcome to WBF Audiocrack

I can only aspire to own such a superb setup as you have in my dreams, and that's ok. Would you happen to have any pictures of your system to share with us? We are audiophiles, but greatly enthusiastic of visuals.
I am gathering from your first post that you are in The Netherlands? If so, a double welcome then from one Dutchman to another!

 

[jfrech]

thanks for writing and welcome to wbf ! I'd like to see pics also...you seem to have quite a system! congratulations !

 

[Audiocrack]

thanks for writing and welcome to wbf ! I'd like to see pics also...you seem to have quite a system! congratulations !

Although I am not new to the whatsbestforum, thanks very much for the welcome, both from you and Johnny Vinyl. The question regarding pictures: I do not want to dissappoint you but for the moment I rather concentrate on the topic of this thread: the Tripoint Troy signatur grounding device. I hope audiophiles who who experimented with grounding their systems will share their thought with us.

 

[mep]

I went to the website and read their blurb. I thought this was a passive device so why is there a power cord? The ad says the following:

"No transformers, circuit boards, caps, op-amps, ferrites, coils, chips, plastics, LED’s or degrading parts that would create any electronic signature to the sound"

I want to state that I do believe in creating a star ground system for your components. Ampex Roger on our forum motivated me to try this for my system. I don't need an African Bubinga wooden enclosure with laser engraved metal plates on the top and front of the box though. I just used a chunk of copper bus bar with some holes drilled and tapped for screws and ran a 10 gauge wire from each of my components to the bus bar and connected them with spade lugs to the bus bar. I ran one ground wire from the bus bar to the center screw of the outlet where my preamp is plugged in. My noise floor has never been lower and I'm quite happy with this arrangement. It's not as sexy looking as a polished Bubinga box with "classified" parts, but it does a damn fine job.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Ampex Roger on our forum motivated me to try this for my system....................................I just used a chunk of copper bus bar with some holes drilled and tapped for screws and ran a 10 gauge wire from each of my components to the bus bar and connected them with spade lugs to the bus bar. I ran one ground wire from the bus bar to the center screw of the outlet where my preamp is plugged in. My noise floor has never been lower and I'm quite happy with this arrangement. It's not as sexy looking as a polished Bubinga box with "classified" parts, but it does a damn fine job.

nice. I might just try that myself.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

I went to the website and read their blurb. I thought this was a passive device so why is there a power cord? The ad says the following:

"No transformers, circuit boards, caps, op-amps, ferrites, coils, chips, plastics, LED’s or degrading parts that would create any electronic signature to the sound"

I think that the power cord on the Tripoint units simply captures the ground, the actual live A/C circuit is dead ended.

that could be a superior way for a solid ground connection and part of it's effectiveness. in my system considering the Equi=tech balanced isolation transformer that ground circuit is likely the best way to go for that issue.

 

[MylesBAstor]

I went to the website and read their blurb. I thought this was a passive device so why is there a power cord? The ad says the following:

"No transformers, circuit boards, caps, op-amps, ferrites, coils, chips, plastics, LED’s or degrading parts that would create any electronic signature to the sound"

I want to state that I do believe in creating a star ground system for your components. Ampex Roger on our forum motivated me to try this for my system. I don't need an African Bubinga wooden enclosure with laser engraved metal plates on the top and front of the box though. I just used a chunk of copper bus bar with some holes drilled and tapped for screws and ran a 10 gauge wire from each of my components to the bus bar and connected them with spade lugs to the bus bar. I ran one ground wire from the bus bar to the center screw of the outlet where my preamp is plugged in. My noise floor has never been lower and I'm quite happy with this arrangement. It's not as sexy looking as a polished Bubinga box with "classified" parts, but it does a damn fine job.

I think Enid described doing that in TAS many years ago. Know I did that 20 (?) years ago but got away from it. Worked for me at the time.

 

[mep]

Could be Mike. That would make sense.

 

[mep]

I think Enid described doing that in TAS many years ago. Know I did that 20 (?) years ago but got away from it. Worked for me at the time.

And probably still would...

 

[Mike Lavigne]

I just did a google search for 'oxygen free copper bus bar' and came up with a bunch of industrial supply companies who want to sell me large quantities of them. some of them are 'tinned' which is said to help resist environmental degradation. i'm pretty stupid on these sort of questions. would 'tinning' help in conductivity? or do we just want the OFC as pure as possible? I know that the .999999% OFC in my Furutech outlets really made a large difference in performance over the alloy in my Oyaide R-1's.

 

[RogerD]

If you want a nice looking ground device for a star circuit by all means spend the 14K, but for 10 bucks you can have the same result. There is no magic here,all that superfluous noise in your system must be taken back to ground,if you do that,then you have the foundation for great sound. Noise is the enemy,noise is what robs the system of clarity,speed,dynamics and high resolution. You want holographic 3D sound? Get rid of the noise.

 

[RogerD]

I want to state that I do believe in creating a star ground system for your components. Ampex Roger on our forum motivated me to try this for my system. I don't need an African Bubinga wooden enclosure with laser engraved metal plates on the top and front of the box though. I just used a chunk of copper bus bar with some holes drilled and tapped for screws and ran a 10 gauge wire from each of my components to the bus bar and connected them with spade lugs to the bus bar. I ran one ground wire from the bus bar to the center screw of the outlet where my preamp is plugged in. My noise floor has never been lower and I'm quite happy with this arrangement. It's not as sexy looking as a polished Bubinga box with "classified" parts, but it does a damn fine job.

Mark has got it right. When setting this up,I listen to the size of my sound stage,amplifiers can if already star grounded actually negate the scheme,so listen when connecting the amps,some need the scheme some don't. The soundstage will actually become larger,on my system it was actually like throwing a switch. If I remember right it took about 50 hours for the system to restabilize,pretty incredible.

Another thing this will not turn a sows ear into a silk purse,but will enable the system to perform @ it's best. You really can't tell if any changes made,are at their optimum. Regularly most of the time you get glimpses,with this you potentially get whacked with a hammer.

 

[Greg Beron / UHA]

Simple Star Ground



Subject #1:
Many years ago when I put the Tara Labs Zero Gold interconnects into my system I had some long conversations with Matthew Bond about the benefits of Star Grounding. Each of the Tara Zero's have their own grounding station with nice plug in connections for the right and left cables shielding and also a ground output. This is a heavy aluminum chassis grounding station that looks and feels fairly impressive I would say. These ground outputs connect to the star ground.

Simple Star Ground: So as you can see in the picture, (outlet on the far right) in addition to the 3 - 20A circuits on the left I simply ran another copper cable from my home's earth ground to a speaker binding post and connected all grounds to that.

However, in addition to this I had an electrician come out to the house and put three large copper grounding spikes into the earth on the side of my house with a special electrolytic slurry around them. These are 6' long and 1" in diameter, all three are connected with large gauge copper cabling designed for this purpose, all this augments the house ground that comes from in ground copper water pipes. I ran a large copper cable from that to the speaker binding post you see in the picture. I then ran a wire from the chassis of the components and the cables to the star ground.
I can easily confirm (over many years of observation) that if just one wire comes off of that star ground I can hear it.

Subject #2:
You will also see the round cylinder with the white wire connected to it, that is a PranaWire Super Enhanced Ground Plane Joe Choen sent me to fool around with.

I stuck it on the ground post and the question is do I hear a difference and can I attribute the difference to the device? Haven't done the scientific A/B tests yet but I will get around to it.
I can say that my system is sounding more amazing lately but not sure that this SEGP device is contributing to that at this time, the reason is because I have made changes to new footers on the speakers and equipment, that was an amazing change for sure.


Below is a blurb from Steve McCormack's on the SEGP.

Steve McCormack on the PranaWire

Super Enhanced Ground Plane Accessories.
"...they improve dynamic contrast and shading, making the presentation more vivid. Bass seems deeper, with improved pitch definition. Tonal colors are richer, and I am pulled more deeply into the performance."

Joe Cohen's Enhanced Ground Plane Adapters, or Attack of the Ground Pods

Audiophiles are probably aware of a variety of "ground tweaks" that have been available for a while, and maybe you've tried them in your own system. These have taken the form of a short piece of wire bundle or loop tied to a connector at one end, usually connected to the system's electrical ground at the speaker, amplifier, or preamp. Significant sonic improvements have been reported by some. My own experiments with these accessories have been a somewhat mixed bag, and I never found them compelling enough to want to leave them in my system.

Enter Joe Cohen of The Lotus Group and his new "Enhanced Ground Adapters." These small pods are an outgrowth of Joe's design work with his "Linebacker" AC conditioner and they build on the idea that potentially significant performance improvements are possible by "enhancing" or somehow improving the quality of your system ground. This won't sound like news to anyone who has worked with electric power distribution, but these pods are something else again and how they work is closer to modern-day voodoo.

In fact, no one knows how they work. The pods resemble a medium-size capacitor, but with only one connecting wire. The internal construction is a complex recipe known only to Joe, and based on his own research. They are attached to the system ground at some convenient point - I've been using the ground lug(s) on the rear of my amplifier, another on the back of my preamp, and I have experimented with installing them inside my CD player and DAC. I hear an immediate effect, but for me they don't sound "right" until they have had about a day to "charge-up" or whatever the heck they are doing. After that it's all good - I really like what they do!

And what is that, you ask? In my system they improve dynamic contrast and shading, making the presentation more vivid. Bass seems deeper, with improved pitch definition. Tonal colors are richer, and I am pulled more deeply into the performance. And that's the point, after all - I want to feel a real connection with the music, and these devices do help with that goal.

Joe's Ground Enhancers have found a happy home in my system and I feel that they are well worth a try in yours. The usual rules apply - your mileage may vary and no tweak will deliver the same results in every situation. But if your experience is anything like mine, you will find Joe's Ground Pods are a worthy addition to your musical enjoyment.

Steve McCormack
SMc Audio
6-26-2013

 

[mep]

I just did a google search for 'oxygen free copper bus bar' and came up with a bunch of industrial supply companies who want to sell me large quantities of them. some of them are 'tinned' which is said to help resist environmental degradation. i'm pretty stupid on these sort of questions. would 'tinning' help in conductivity? or do we just want the OFC as pure as possible? I know that the .999999% OFC in my Furutech outlets really made a large difference in performance over the alloy in my Oyaide R-1's.

Mike-my bar is just pure copper. I just did a google search and even Walmart sells them: http://www.walmart.com/ip/13078688?wmlspartner=wlpa&adid=22222222227006751571&wl0=&wl1=g&wl2=c&wl3=17414167150&wl4=&wl5=pla&wl6=38834077750&veh=sem

 

[RogerD]

I haven't got time to read Steve McCormacks's piece,but to me he has great credibility.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Mike-my bar is just pure copper. I just did a google search and even Walmart sells them: http://www.walmart.com/ip/13078688?wmlspartner=wlpa&adid=22222222227006751571&wl0=&wl1=g&wl2=c&wl3=17414167150&wl4=&wl5=pla&wl6=38834077750&veh=sem

it says it's 'solid copper'.

I wonder what specific purity of copper it is? is it OFC and if so how pure? and would a larger thicker more pure copper bar sound better?

based on my experience with AC duplex outlets these things could matter. and a bit of mass likely would help too. evidently Tripoint has found that those type issues have benefits (i'm simply doing a SWAG).

in the context of $12k Tripoint products, spending a few hundred dollars to get a larger, heavier, 99.9999%. pure copper bar would likely yield benefits. now if I can just find one like that.

of course; the true skeptic might comment that I could simply pay Wallmart $200 for their $10 bar and call it good.

 

[mep]

it says it's 'solid copper'.

I wonder what specific purity of copper it is? is it OFC and if so how pure? and would a larger thicker more pure copper bar sound better?

based on my experience with AC duplex outlets these things could matter. and a bit of mass likely would help too. evidently Tripoint has found that those type issues have benefits (i'm simply doing a SWAG).


in the context of $12k Tripoint products, spending a few hundred dollars to get a larger, heavier, 99.9999%. pure copper bar would likely yield benefits.

Mike-Here is my suggestion:Look through your yellow pages and find a metals distributor in your area and have them cut you a chunk of copper bar stock to the dimensions you want. You could probably also go to a local machine shop and they may have the bar stock on hand that you would want and they could drill and tap the holes for whatever size screws you want to use to secure your ground wires to.

 

[jazdoc]

I haven't got time to read Steve McCormacks's piece,but to me he has great credibility.

I had the opportunity to try Joe's Ground Enhancers in my system -- it works!