Fun project…Thought I would share my findings after several weeks of using and adjusting my 3 DIY ground boxes. Now obviously each system and home electrical grid is different and will experience different results. My system is not super revealing high end and I am blown away at what a little build effort, small investment and how experimenting with materials can make such an impact on sound quality. Dead silence for a tube amp and tube DAC. Clarity, separation of instruments, depth of soundstage, bass definition all improved significantly. Who would of thought you could get these results? I built 2 6x6x6 each one is connected independently to a speaker negative banana. The larger 12x7x6 has one banana connected to my power condtioner chassis ground that all components are plugged into while the second banana is connected to the wall outlet ground only. Below is a list of building materials. I kept the fill ingredients to a minimum which worked fine for me. Lastly, my findings were using solid copper plates vs aluminum plates didn’t seem to make a difference, 11ga stranded ofc copper sounded better than stranded silver or 16ga solid silver (slightly fuller, richer, warmer sound to me), doubling the size of the box made a noticeable difference on the power conditioner. Sound improves with use as there seems to be a break in period. Pics are on my system page.
Ground Box 6”x6” (2)
- Made of scrape melamine covered in contact paper
- Copper plates, copper tape, banana plug, bare solid copper ground wire,
11ga stranded copper speaker wire
- 50 g Tourmaline fine stones
- 225g raw Tourmaline stones
- 50/50 volume mix of rock salt (4 lbs) and horticulture charcoal (2qt) Connected one box to each speaker neg posts
Large Ground Box 12”x7”x6”
- Same as above with these additions
- 2 banana plugs
- Copper color aluminum plates (work as well as the copper and easier
to cut and shape)
- 500 grams of natural tourmaline
- rock salt (8lbs), horticulture charcoal (4qts), graphite powder (2lbs),
sand(quartz) (2lbs)
Connected large box to power conditioner chassis ground with power
cord cable ground only connected to spade plug with hot, neutral
and ground wires twisted together.
