Review: EVS Ground Enhancers Tweak


Category: Accessories

I recently put together a high performance system for my sitting room. The acoustics are very good with my listening position just 6 feet away, with the speakers only 5' 6" apart and only 1'6" out from the front wall. My musical interests cover jazz, classical, folk-pop and prog rock. Most of my systems have been no holds barred 6 figure behemoths with varying results. My latest foray into the musical arts has sparked my interest anew...and all for well under $10k. The icing on the cake comes in the form of a set of EVS Ground Enhancers(GE's) from Ric Schultz (Mr. EVS himself). After a lengthy discussion with Ric concerning the efficacy of the aforementioned GE's, I placed my order and waited. When they arrived, I discovered that Ric had sent me an extra set of prototype GE's marked with a black dot. A call to Ric enlightened me as to what was different about the prototypes....more wire! More wire more goodness seems to be the theory. Ric is very laid back, thoughtful and experimental by nature...he is an audio artist. Information and GE's in hand, I started hooking them up and tieing them down...with the supplied string. Yup, you should tie them down to prevent ringing...just do it, they sound better that way. Bottom line is that they work. How you ask? Well, let's put it this way....they are ADDICTIVE!! Leave them in and play them for a few hours before critical listening, but then play your favorite music. Next, I dare you to take them out of your system and not get the itch to put them back in. So what DO THEY DO?? Ok, Ok I'll tell ya....Everything is better. What? You want more? Alright, I'll dish some more. By better, I mean that the entire soundstage opens up more, inner detail is portrayed in bolder relief and the apparent scale of the music is enhanced somehow....the musicians seem to become almost tangible. Very strange indeed. I wound up with the prototype GE's on the negative tweeter terminals of my speakers and the standard GE's on the bass sections and on the neg posts of my amp. I also use an RCA GE on my amps Tuner input section (any input or output should work however). I tried removing the GE's from my system, but everytime I did, a sense of loss soon followed. A loss of aliveness and scale, a reduction of clarity and transparency and a generalized flattening of the images. The thrill was gone without the Ground Enhancers from Ric at EVS. You owe it to yourself to try them...it's like Viagra for your stereo:O)

Associated gear
NAD C375BEE Integrated
NAD C565BEE CD Player
Totem Arrow Speakers
MIT S3.3 and AVT 1 Cabling
MIT Magnum AC2 power cord for amp
Audioquest NRG3 power cord for CD
HiFi Tuning Supreme Fuse for Amp
Herbie Audio Labs isolation products
Mapleshade Brass Heavyhat weights

Similar products
Audioprism Ground Control
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Showing 1 response by cmschwar

Dave, thanks for posting this review. I too purchased the GEs from EVS after reading other positive reviews. I was not expecting much, just thought, what the heck. I received the additional set of prototypes from Ric. I put the standard GEs on the negative speaker posts of mt Sonus Fabers and could not believe the positive impact. I started laughing at the realization of what this weird looking inexpensive tweak was having on sound of the system. I had recently modified the Sonus Fabers with new caps throughout (Duelund and Obbligato) and had been elated with the improvement. It was a fair amount of work however. To have the GEs enhance the soundstage, detail, coherence and fullness of the presentation really took me by surprise. this was months ago and two days ago I realized I should go ahead and put the other standard pair on thr Bel Canto mono blocks. Ha! I just cannot believe what these things do. The best ROI of any tweak of all time for me. I actually hesitate to call it a tweak given the impact. I have not tied these down yet but I am sure I will, laughing all the while at using the decidedly low tech string included by Ric. I am going to order the RCA for the Burson HA 160D pre/DAC/headphone amp and see how that plays out. The Furutech plug for the extra headphone jack is also of interest to me. I am listening to Marvin Gaye as I type this and the sound is the best I have heard in the gizzilion times I've heard the album. Ric and EVS really found something with the GEs.