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Do better ingredients make a better Ground Wire?

We have all heard the slogan "Better ingredients better Pizza". If this is true with Pizza, how about applying this Principal to a DIY Ground wire I pondered. So I set off on a journey to find out if using better ingredients (wire) would make a better ground cable. My finding of course only apply to my system in my listening room using my ears (my wife and my Beagle dog don't count). But they heard the difference as well. To say this was a short trip is an understatement. To say that the two versions I made more than held there own is an even BIGGER understatement. One version uses solid core Silver wire. The other version uses a silver & Palladium mix. I made 4 of each kind, both versions terminated using a pure 8 awg copper spade. Do better ingredients make a better Ground wire. In my system, a very understated YES!!!
jejaudio
tpreaves's avatar
tpreaves
2,681 posts
 
having read the 6Moons review and the laughable non-explanations that are quoted in its sidebar

I got the same feeling.
unclejeff
1,313 posts
 
G'God.

I so miss Sean.......
magfan
1,583 posts
 
Al,
Agreed. I wonder just how much RF it would take to cause audible problems?

I HAVE picked up radio on my non-tuner'd stereo before. long ago.

I currently live near a transmitter tower(s) but for the last 20+ years have heard NO audible effect.

Does 'Ground Plane' enter into any of this?
almarg's avatar
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almarg
9,670 posts
 
Does 'Ground Plane' enter into any of this?
Audio Prism seems to say so, while admitting that they don't fully understand it, but that strikes me as nonsense. From the review, quoting one of their partners:
We believe it provides a ground reference. We don’t really know how but we hear the improvement on a wide variety of speakers. Some of these effects can’t be measured. Or at least we don’t know what to measure.

Magfan: I wonder just how much RF it would take to cause audible problems.... I currently live near a transmitter tower(s) but for the last 20+ years have heard NO audible effect.
Don't know, but as I said I'd be surprised (very surprised) if the effect I described were audibly significant. Although the rf situation is different these days than in earlier times, because of wifi and cellphones.

Note as I indicated earlier that the length of this thing (at least in the case of the diy versions that were described by the posters above) suggests that it is tuned to either the 2.4gHz wifi frequency and/or to some cellphone frequencies, not to radio or tv frequencies, which are much lower. The Audio Prism version appears to be somewhat different:
There is a lot of very fine wire (about 138 feet) looped inside the GC in a very special braid configuration. He added that increasing the length of the GC by a ¼ inch would mess up the sound. It’s critically tuned.
I suppose that could mean that the Audio Prism version is tuned to lower frequencies, but my knowledge of antenna theory isn't sufficiently up to snuff. In any event I don't think the ground plane explanation makes any sense, and even the Audio Prism person admits he is not sure. One of the many reasons I say that is that ground planes are not "critically tuned," while antennas are.

Best regards,
-- Al
jea48
4,266 posts
 

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?htech&1265474015&openfrom&1&4#1
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