[BudP]

Careful control of metal to metal joints is very important, once you start into the subtle tuning realm. I use insulated strand Litz to avoid letting the oxygen have direct access to the copper as even small amounts of cupric oxide cause sonic problems. Having one material threshold in the chain of connections is best, two is acceptable, but limits what can be retained and three , while not unworkable, does begin to loose obvious amounts of information and the retained information begins to sound grainy, in comparison with the other formats.

If I could get over the fear factor I might try a hot boron cleaning of the Litz and then a gas tight pressure weld of copper to copper and a quick dip into an acrylic coating to preserve the copper surfaces involved. The price for the parts would sky rocket though.

Bud

[TooManyToys]

Bud,

Back in '07 on DIY you stated:

" .... two 300mm lengths of #8 stranded wire, with as fine a strand of copper as you can get and a decent poly-something sheath. Or a 150mm length of true Litz wire with three 9mm pieces of polyethylene shrink wrap tube, shrunk tightly by 50% or so, distributed on the length of wire. The Litz must be made from insulated magnet wire and should have at least 10 times the surface area of an equivalent piece of solid copper wire. ......."

There is no way to get 4 ends of 8 ga wire through a single speaker or amp binding post.  With the statement of minimizing metal to metal joints, is it proper to use a short length of other wire as a terminus?  I'm assuming that is what the "me too" product is doing.

I happen to have a high strand count 8 ga wire from work years ago, Belden 9908 (84x27).

For the Litz, could one use 7X22X36 Type 2?

Jack

[BudP]

TooManyToys

There is no way to get 4 ends of 8 ga wire through a single speaker or amp binding post.  With the statement of minimizing metal to metal joints, is it proper to use a short length of other wire as a terminus?  I'm assuming that is what the "me too" product is doing.

I happen to have a high strand count 8 ga wire from work years ago, Belden 9908 (84x27).

For the Litz, could one use 7X22X36 Type 2?

I no longer know what the context was for the # 8 gauge wire. I think I was probably consulting with Romy the Cat about his ground connections, as he was building his six channel dedicated SE amps. Been a while indeed. Using a wire like this as your ground connection between star grounds, for signal and true ground, is very effective in retaining much of what the Ground Controls are for.

I wouldn't use any 8 gauge stranded or solid as an external loop for speakers, though I might not have been that smart in 2007. Certainly I never used it as such, don't have anything that heavy here and Romy was aiming at the ultimate, as usual, and was not interested in Ground Control type implementations. Having that little pig tail sticking out insulted him....

You might as well try that Litz. Is it made with insulated strands or bare wire? Bare wire is more difficult to get exactly what you want out of the wire, hard to properly apply a dielectric and then get a gradient change by removing and applying more or less.

Bud

[BudP]

satfrat,

Start with the zip cord, 2 feet long, split and stripped on both ends an inch or two. Form a loop tie it on and listen. If you find a change you do not have to strain to hear, then it is worth investigating.

Bud

[MaxCast]

Rommy the Cat...isn't that the guy that used a coat hanger on a SACD player and did A/B comparisons with audiophile wire...many moons ago? 

[TooManyToys]

Insulated strands.

[Quiet Earth]

I've followed the threads on this for a short time now and I've studied everyones results. I am embarrassed to admit that I'm still stuck on square one :

Start with the zip cord, 2 feet long, split and stripped on both ends an inch or two. Form a loop tie it on and listen. If you find a change you do not have to strain to hear, then it is worth investigating.

Find a change that I do not have to strain to hear. If I can't get past this step, how can I detect subtle changes in the recipe?

I really, really want to hear a positive difference because everyone else seems to be coming up with something good. I've tried a couple of times now with wire lying around the house and I even tried a twenty gage 3mH inductor just to hear something. I just can't get past that first step - A change that I do not have to strain to hear. I'm not arguing that it doesn't work, I'm just saying that I don't hear anything.

My speakers are wired with litz from drivers to crossover to amp. In fact, litz is just about everywhere throughout my system, internally and externally. Could it be that a fully litztified system does not need this tweek?

I am keeping my mind open.

BTW, nobody mentioned the parallel (no pun intended) between this and the Richard Gray concept. The results seem to be similar, even though the RG product is for AC power.

Oh yeah, one more thing.......  Happy Thanksgiving to my American brethren.

[*Scotty*]

Quiet Earth ,If you recall Bud said the results could vary depending on how your equipment was designed. What gear are you using,your system isn't listed?
Scotty
 

[SCooper]

Quiet Earth:
I have experienced the same. I have Litz coils in my xover on the high and tweets as well as internal in the speakers.  Don't hear much of a change on those. However I did hear the change on the bass (bi-amp) However only on the amp side, nothing much when attached after the xovers   .

Anyone have a source for Litz wire in various makeup ? Would like to
approach from that angle.

Stu

[AK]

I think some people hear the difference, because they move or rotate speakers while installing that wire loop. Sometimes even slight speaker reposition can affect imaging.

[chrisby]

as I think Bud has noted elsewhere (and as I remember part of our conversation on the subject way back in 2007 ), not all components have the deficiencies in their ground planes that these little buggers are intended to remedy 

in the case of the EnABLed Fostex full range drivers on which I first heard them, the difference was not subtle, and definitely synergistic with the polka dots 

[Russell Dawkins]

I think some people hear the difference, because they move or rotate speakers while installing that wire loop. Sometimes even slight speaker reposition can affect imaging.

The tweak is easy enough to try - then your comments will carry more weight.

Seems to me the only people needing to move their speakers to install the loop have them up against the wall - do you?

[TJHUB]

I've followed the threads on this for a short time now and I've studied everyones results. I am embarrassed to admit that I'm still stuck on square one :

Find a change that I do not have to strain to hear. If I can't get past this step, how can I detect subtle changes in the recipe?

I really, really want to hear a positive difference because everyone else seems to be coming up with something good. I've tried a couple of times now with wire lying around the house and I even tried a twenty gage 3mH inductor just to hear something. I just can't get past that first step - A change that I do not have to strain to hear. I'm not arguing that it doesn't work, I'm just saying that I don't hear anything.

My speakers are wired with litz from drivers to crossover to amp. In fact, litz is just about everywhere throughout my system, internally and externally. Could it be that a fully litztified system does not need this tweek?

I am keeping my mind open.

BTW, nobody mentioned the parallel (no pun intended) between this and the Richard Gray concept. The results seem to be similar, even though the RG product is for AC power.

Oh yeah, one more thing.......  Happy Thanksgiving to my American brethren.

When I first tried this with some zip cord I had lying around, I didn't really hear much a difference if any.  Certainly nothing for me to even comment on.  But after using the wire from a CAT5e cable, the change in sound was obvious.  Even listening today, I am still noticing differences in my favorite tracks.  It's fantastic.

[TJHUB]

I think some people hear the difference, because they move or rotate speakers while installing that wire loop. Sometimes even slight speaker reposition can affect imaging.

For the record, I'd NEVER touch my speaker positioning.  I have far too much time invested in their current locations and I'm afraid to even touch them.  I installed the ground loops without moving my speakers at all.

[BudP]

Having Litz wire speaker cables and coils on crossovers will go a long way in providing what the simpler forms of ground manipulation can provide. All of my cables are Litz wire and I don't have crossovers. I also have speakers that exhibit extreme coherence to 90 db down from signal level and do not exhibit tertiary ringing. It is this set of characteristics that allow even the simple forms to effect their information retention on my system. These simple forms only provide very tiny signal retention, but it is audible, as more hall ambiance and clearer descriptors for the dimensions of the space, relative to the performers.

The Ground Control devices provide more of this set of retained descriptors than does a 2 foot long piece of zip cord, though it is a case of more, not deeper. The ground Controls also provide other, additional categories of information retention that loops of wire only hint at.

Having Litz everywhere an interconnect is needed, is the only choice for my personal system and the Ground Controls work as they do on my system because I have that extra 50 to 60 db of coherent information available. At some point I hope more of you here join me in listening with this much information available. It really just requires some time spent in study and a fair amount of courage and practice of a tedious art. The speakers you already own can be advanced to the levels of performance I speak of and you can do it yourself, albeit with the above caveats for courage and stoic attention to tedious details. You will not have to alter crossover design, nor change box internal parameters since none of the speaker characteristics that drive those choices would change.

Come and join me here and bring what you learn back here to the lab.

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/119676-enabl-listening-impressions-techniques.html#post1460031

You needn't be worried about technical issues nor arguments from skeptical points of view, those are in another thread and while quite interesting and informative, not aimed at the doing and learning portion of EnABL, as the above thread is.

So, don't be surprised at the seemingly random failures and successes of the ground manipulations you are hearing about and experiencing. To always experience all of the available benefits from ground manipulation, you need more and other. Not hard to do, it's free to learn and no more expensive than a set of my esteemed competitors devices, and that just for materials and tools needed.

Bud

[Quiet Earth]

Well, the guests have all gone home and the leftovers are in the fridge. Another Thanksgiving has come and gone. Hope everyone here had a good day as well.

Scotty,
Most of my gear is Audio Note UK. For the loop experiment, I listened with my AN transport, AN dac, and AN amplifiers, all of which are wired internally and externally with AN silver litz interconnect. Speakers are AN-E with external x-over and bi-wired with their silver litz speaker cable. The volume is adjusted with a DIY TVC, no litz inside of that however. I tried a "pigtail" on one of the RCAs of the TVC hoping to hear something there, but I did not. I wish to keep trying though because I do believe that people are being honest about their experiences.

as I think Bud has noted elsewhere (and as I remember part of our conversation on the subject way back in 2007 ), not all components have the deficiencies in their ground planes that these little buggers are intended to remedy 

chrisby,
That's exactly what I was wondering. Is my ground, or ground plane, or whatever it is that has been described, sufficient enough to elude the basic version of this tweak? I guess it's more of a rhetorical question now, as it is up to me to find out.

SCooper,
I tried the amp end too but maybe I should have tried the driver end, after the crossovers. Next round I will.

AK,
I think you made a good point about not moving your speakers. I didn't move mine because it took too much time to get them where they are now.

TJHUB,
CAT5e cable seems cheap enough to try. Thanks for the encouragement. I'll give it a go as soon as I can make some time for round two. I don't want to spend too much time messing with litz until I can hear the basic effect with something easy.

I also have speakers that exhibit extreme coherence to 90 db down from signal level and do not exhibit tertiary ringing.

I usually listen to music around 85dB average peak spl, so that would put the floor of coherency at negative 5dB spl. I'm not sure what kind of an impact that would have on most of the recordings that I listen to.

[Wind Chaser]

Is my ground, or ground plane, or whatever it is that has been described, sufficient enough to elude the basic version of this tweak? I guess it's more of a rhetorical question now, as it is up to me to find out.

That's quite possible.  You could always try one of the commercial products and that should settle it once and for all.  AFAIK they do come with a money back satisfaction guarantee.

[*Scotty*]

Quiet Earth,If you are using a 16/44 digital source by the time you get to -60 below zero dB you have about 3%THD. There isn't much to hear at -85dB in a 16/44 signal.
Scotty

[walkern]

Hey Bud,

Any chance that you'd start up a 'how to' thread here related to the Enabl process?  I'd love to give it a try, but don't know where to start... and the DIY Audio forum threads are SO long I've given up trying to wade through them to find the details.
I've got a lovely set of paper coned drivers (from Danny at GR Research) in a WWMTMWW configuration (using a ribbon tweeter) that I've owned for years and love (RAW Acoustics RA8s).  If there is anything I could do to enhance their sound, I'd give it a go.
Sorry if this is off track and doesn't belong here.

And by the way... I've tried two different versions of the earrings (one with short pieces of Analysis Plus hollow oval speaker wire, and another with 20 strands of solid core 32 awg magnet wire) and both had positive effects, the magnet wire dramatically more so... so thanks for the DIY tips!

Neil

[BudP]

-60 below zero dB you have about 3%THD. There isn't much to hear at -85dB in a 16/44 signal

Exactly correct, but perhaps not to the point, at least in so far as EnABL is concerned. Speakers have more than 3 % distortion, if they are the typical dynamic devices. Electro-stats have quite a bit less and even horns have significant amounts of distortion. Distortion is bad. Incoherence in an information rich signal is worse. This incoherence is what EnABL goes after, what Ground Control goes after and what O-Netics audio transformers go after.

If you have coherence down to that 85db down point, the amount of distortion, unless it is in the 20% and above range is ignored by our brains processing systems. Coherence even in  these tiny sounds is important to our semi autonomous threat assessment correlator. Just consider the Kalahari desert children who hunt scorpions at night, by sound.

Bud