Tboooe: from the looks of it the Entreq unit may remain a bit of a mystery for the time being since any English-language description of it I've seen is so hopelessly mangled from the translation from Swiss. I have no experience with it (and don't yet know anyone who does). I could tell at least from one site that it's only part of an overall power delivery system for your rig and that it's apparently more popular in Europe than here (small wonder with that translation being the only product announcement I could see...not knocking the product at this point, just the means of its introduction). I use a Tricell Chemical Ground along with a Tricell Earth Filter from Alan Maher for this purpose which work very well - noticeable improvements in just about every sound attribute across the board. Very definitely they lower the noise floor. It is also astonishing to see the effect on video as well. You know when you see some fine print on a flat panel TV that consists of small, white text on a plain, light-colored background? If you look closely next time and adjust sharpness at the same time you'll notice the more you increase sharpness the more an artificial vertical edge appears right along side the vertical portions of the letters (at least on one side of them). All you can expect to do is reduce sharpness until legibility becomes optimal. That goes for image detail too, of course. This kind of image blurring is called "ringing" - the same kind you can see on an oscilloscope...also called "overshoot". These 2 products reduce ringing dramatically, not all-the-way completely, but VERY nearly so. I can ramp up the sharpness with out the usual garishness to the pic that tells me I've gone too far. It has made standard hidef TV look like 4k. Alan's is one of the very few forms of power conditioning that has actually addressed ringing. The audio benefits are equally remarkable. I'm betting you never thought your tweeters were capable of this level of smoothness, extension, dynamics and fine detail and utter clarity...I know I didn't til I heard it in my rig. But, from what Alan tells me, grounding is normally accomplished through the copper ground rod into the soil where a number of chemical compounds (a long list, actually) are in the presence of ground water (moisture). But it's those compounds in the presence of water that's key. Many people notice that their rig can sound inexplicably better after a 2-or-3 day gentle, soaking rain. Dryer ground or earth surrounding the rod that is depleted of some of the needed chemicals (which tends to happen naturally over the years anyway) lead to less than ideal ground. Also, newly built homes have the best ground at first, but this slowly changes over time also as the ground rod begins to corrode, as well. In some parts of the country even a house as new as 3 years can have little or no ground and after 10 years many homes will be effectively without ground. It matters where you live in that it may be much easier for the ground rod to penetrate the ground water level in, say, southern Florida than it may be up in the Colorado Rockies. In any case Alan maintains that the US code has been screwed up for decades. If your house has a finished basement for example, that spec'ed 8-ft ground outside one level above won't be enough to go below the basement and tap into the water table since the code also stipulates that that the basement be built so many inches above the water table to prevent leakage into the home. You might end up needing something more like a 20-ft rod and, depending on local conditions (General Contractors in your area should be able to clue you in about water table depth where you live), you may still not reach the water table. Alan packed the necessary compounds into the Tricell Chemical Ground, so any soil conditioning (which has been resorted to in the past, is no longer needed...it also acts as a true "portable ground" and is indeed a substitute ground even for homes that not were not built with any ground at all - only hot and neutral). The Tricell Earth Filter actually magnetizes the soil surrounding the ground rod and, together with some other of his products I have in my home, they do something in the way of lightning protection. Lightning strikes that hit nearby powerlines are not the usual culprit to equipment loss. That's because the power co. has a system (ever since the 1950's) of chokes and regulators along the lines every so often that makes this a non-issue (and if they didn't, they know everyone would be throwing rocks at them). But, they don't do anything about the ground rod because most people are accepting of the risk-vs-loss ratio of lightning striking a nearby tree. What's happening is that it runs down into the ground, finds the ground rod and gets into the home that way. Something close to 99% of loss is due to this entry point to the home. Alan's Reference Ground system provides, what is in essence, a system of chokes and regulators inside the home that absorbs lightning frequencies (lightning can be thought of as an intense burst of high-frequency noise). But, it remains to be seen just how effective all that will be and I suppose the only way I will ever know it didn't work as well as I'd hope will be if I lose some gear...like any other strategery, really. But, this is the one I chose to hitch my horse to and I'm loving it if for no other reason than the sound quality his Reference Ground system (which includes other pieces) is giving me (that alone is worth the price). But, NO system can protect anything from a direct enough hit. That's at least because of the magnetic pulse given off by lightning, just as surely as it emitts thunder. The magnetic pulse is strong enough to induce an actual voltage in anything metal, including your components - whether they are plugged into anything or not - which can fry just about everything inside. According to Alan, his system in total works to make circuit breakers (the usual thermal/magnetic kind, anyway) at the panel about 97% faster in their reaction speed (types other than thermal/magnetic tend to be increased by about 50%), so no more stupid surge protectors, as far as I'm concerned. In fact, I'm of the opinion, as I've stated before, that they don't really work, anyway. Or that they DO work Exactly as advertised - which effectively amounts to the same thing. IOW, they work beautifully, but in fact are no faster at all than any decent circuit breaker. Making them reliably faster would be incredibly expensive and technically very difficult...and few are even bothering to try in the first place. Why bother? Everyone is content with the surge protector myth, so as long as that's what they're buying, that's everyone will manufacture. I believe all they really do is add noise to the system and provide a false peace of mind. What I have from Alan amount to prototypes, but the finished versions will be available (probably in early 2014) as soon as his first B&M store is finished with construction in Nashville. Prices TBA, but probably somewhere in the neighborhood of $1k-1.2K each for these 2 products. Ok, Ok, another stoopid-long post, sorry, all...
Entreq ground conditioners - what's the theory?
Entreq and other products boast conditioning the ground to help improve the sound. Being completely clueless about anything electrical, I am very curious what the theory is behind this product and technically how it can improve the quality of the power and thus the music. I am not looking to argue if these products do as they advertise. I just want to learn more about the idea.
- ...
- 42 posts total
- 42 posts total