[davidrs]

Hi Bud,

Is what you label as "E Field moment" the same as "electric dipole moment?"

Thanks,

David.

[BudP]

davidrs,

the electric dipole moment has to do with orientation of the dipole, that is, the positions of the charges, and does not indicate the direction of the field originating in these charges.

The above is from Wikipedia and is correct as I understand the concept. The dipole orientation appears to point to the alleged "spin" orientation of an electron, that is being manipulated by another electron.

This is the way an electron that has been aligned with the Electrostatic Field Moment or E Field, causes the end electron of a dielectric material to begin the "signal" chain across a dielectric barrier, eventually recreating the "signal" by this Electrical Dipole Moment event being applied to another "conductor" plate electron. This is how you signal across a capacitor, when it is being used as a DC blocking circuit element.

Just wait till you stumble across D Fields..... hehehe

Bud

[davidrs]

Bud,

No thanks.... 

My head Spin is already oriented in the direction of the 'Duh' field! Dipole moments non-withstanding.

Thanks for clearing that up.

- David.

[BudP]

I could recommend Ralph Morrison's "Grounding and Shielding Techniques" fourth edition. A thin book, on a deep subject , without a single calculation in it, just pictures and text that provides enough of a hint to secondary and allied phenomena, to cause your brain to bubble. And the pictures are so useful that the math is not missed at all.

Bud

[satfrat]

Jason.

Pursuant to our private conversations, I have to contact AudioPrism to see what steps they may wish to take. I am not empowered to "advertise" Ground Control". I answer forum posts because I am the inventor, but the choice of marketing venues and allied topics is not mine to make.

However, as a hint, please Google AudioPrism Ground Control for a number of reviews and marketing avenues. Also there is another earlier thread here on AudioCircle.

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=79279.0

Thank you for your courtesy in starting this thread.

Bud

It's ashame that this thread got locked into another manufacturer's Circle where usually only those few product owners get to see it. It's a damn shame that this didn't make it where more eyes could have seen it. I'm on here all the time yet I never saw this particular thread back in March. Better late than never to learn something new. 
 
Cheers,
Robin

[JohnR]

What does the interconnect version look like - I mean, same kind of construction?

[HAL]

If I understood the original post by BudP, this is what I made with 16awg zip cord to his instructions:

[Mike B.]

What does the interconnect version look like - I mean, same kind of construction?

I would imagine you would just use the outer barrel of a rca connector (ground) and solder the loop to it.

[BudP]

Hal,

Yes, that's the ticket. You can adjust the characteristics to a slight degree by how much copper is left between the speaker lug and the insulated wire portion.

The interconnect does look like we just soldered the wire to the ground of the RCA. There is a bit more involved than this.

Bud

[HAL]

Bud,
Thanks for the feedback.  Will give them a try.

[andyr]

Yes, that's the ticket. You can adjust the characteristics to a slight degree by how much copper is left between the speaker lug and the insulated wire portion.

The interconnect does look like we just soldered the wire to the ground of the RCA. There is a bit more involved than this.

Bud

What a cool tweak, Bud. 

It seems to be similar to one a dealer told me about 15 years ago - just plug a 2' length of speaker cable into the -ve BP and just leave it hanging.  (His explanation was ... this helped absorb back-EMF, somehow.  )

I will try it out but I'd appreciate it if you could give me an answer to the following Qs:
1. Does the wire have to be stranded?  What about 16g solid-core wire (eg. magwire)?
2. Is the insulation material important - perhaps the "enamel" insulation is no good and it needs to be PVC or teflon?
3. Does it have to be 16g wire?  What effect will thinner or thicker have?
4. When you say "You can adjust the characteristics to a slight degree by how much copper is left between the speaker lug and the insulated wire portion", do you mean the sonic result of this tweak is affected by how much uninsulated wire there between the -ve BP and the start of the insulated loop?
5. Does making the loop bigger have any effect?

Regards,

Andy

[Big Red Machine]

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/groundcontrol/groundcontrol.html

[Wind Chaser]

Read the above reviews and I get the impression that these don't make a significant difference.

[Wind Chaser]

Don't know how you can read the 6Moons review and come to that conclusion.

Here's what Stephæn concluded in the same review / link...

After 'breaking them in' for the equivalent of 40 hours or so, I experimented with the devices in three systems in three different venues; with three different speakers, two different preamps, two different amps, one integrated, one receiver and one CD player. Over a series of sighted A/B listening sessions, I sometimes reckoned that I heard a touch more body and low-level dynamics in the mids. But the differences weren’t tenacious enough to trust. In unsighted—not double-blind—A/Bs it became clear that I could not dependably identify when they were in or out. The same held true over periods of long-term listening. Since I was unable to reliably detect the possible differences in or out of the various contexts explored, I have to say that the Ground Control devices aren’t for me. Your mileage may vary.

[Wind Chaser]

I'm still interested in reading what others around here have to say.  I may yet order a pair from Ric Schultz, but right now I'm trying to come to a conclusion in the matter of speaker cables and ICs and possibly a tube amp to go along with my newly acquired Druids.

[BudP]

I will try it out but I'd appreciate it if you could give me an answer to the following Qs:
1. Does the wire have to be stranded?  What about 16g solid-core wire (eg. magwire)?
2. Is the insulation material important - perhaps the "enamel" insulation is no good and it needs to be PVC or teflon?
3. Does it have to be 16g wire?  What effect will thinner or thicker have?
4. When you say "You can adjust the characteristics to a slight degree by how much copper is left between the speaker lug and the insulated wire portion", do you mean the sonic result of this tweak is affected by how much uninsulated wire there between the -ve BP and the start of the insulated loop?
5. Does making the loop bigger have any effect?

Andy,

The main thrust of the Ground Control loops is to get the physical size down to something reasonable. We only have LC&R to work with, no elves in the hills etc. So, to concentrate the effects of what occurs in the 2 foot long piece of wire and then make manipulation of those effects repeatable you have to marginalize some things and expand others.

In the audio transformers I make, both for audio reproduction amplifiers (but no longer to any manufacturers of amplifiers, due mostly to how unstable their cash flow is) and guitar amplifier manufacturers (who are very stable financially) I use a winding format that causes the available electrons, meaning the ones that are always shuttling around in droves, seething if you will, in the coil winding wire actually collect at the dielectric barriers from primary to secondary. I use a dielectric circuit to accomplish this and it is comprised of materials with different dielectric constants used in such a fashion that it is easier for the electrons to accumulate at the dielectric barriers. This means that when a signal comes through, as a B Field, electromagnetic event and suddenly stops for an E Field Electrostatic moment the electron density at the dielectric barriers is so dense that there is a very noticeable increase in the coherent transform of signal across that barrier, from primary to secondary, while there is a dearth of electrons trying to signal from deeper within the coils. The capacitive coupling is enhanced, without also enhancing the distributed capacitance, in fact diminishing it. Net result are transformers with what my customers claim is three to four times the amount of information available when the signal gets to the speakers.

Under these circumstances I want a large area of coupling between primary and secondary and I want one with a specific amount of dielectric constant vs that found through out the rest of the coil, along with dielectric absorption that occurs at low charge thresholds and releases at the same low threshold. I want those electrons, which are going to seethe no matter what, to be doing so in an area of interest to me, for signal coherence reasons.

The Ground Control devices follow this same line of thought. I want lots of surface area, closely coupled to a dielectric material that has the above qualities. So, I will leave you to answer question #1 on your own.

Question #2 Yes, extremely so, if you want to be able to tune this high Q device to work in the widest possible set of unknown circumstances.

Question 3# Again, the surface area vs length vs dielectric coating properties vs unknown ground situation shows up. All of these are a balancing act, change one constituent characteristic and you must compensate with the other characteristics.

Question #4 Yes. However the amount of control you can exert, with a loop that is this gross, in it's materials interaction, is really very slight. It will show you that either your system is amenable or it is not, but you will spend a long time trying to improve what you get out of it.

Question #5 Yes, though you really do begin to get into radio interference issues and the extra size just dilutes what little control over the effects you have. To get control you have to raise the Q of the system that looks so simple in the GC devices and then learn how to control those much more delicately balanced interactions.

You could go and read the three year old thread here.

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=1213239#post1213239

What you will get from it will answer most of your still seething questions, to a point that will get you to about 50% of what one pair of the GC Standard, lugged, devices will provide. A number of diy folks experimented on their own and report their results and methods there. One of those has begun manufacturing a competing product, based upon the information found in that thread. You can certainly duplicate his efforts with a few hours of reading and laughter, at the twists and turns of the skeptic league, bless their peer review hearts.

[Wind Chaser]

IMO that's a lot of variables to deal with.

I'd get your system dialed in before experimenting with tweaks.

I've narrowed the speaker cables down to Reality, Libtecs and Grover Huffman.

[BudP]

Wind Chaser, I would strongly suggest that you obtain your tube amp before you make any decision on cables. They are the most susceptible to LCR differences among speaker cables.

As for the GC reviews, one neutral to 7 positive to date, with a couple of customers who returned their GC's because they did not like what they ended up with. That is why we have been adamant about the 30 day return policy. These are not going to work every where to everyone's satisfaction. Neither will our competitors. However, the ratio is a few thousand to three at the moment, in favor of them being satisfactory.

Bud

[JohnR]

I'm still interested in reading what others around here have to say.

Why don't you just try it? (I mean making it - a few feet of wire is all it takes. Isn't that the idea of having this in the Lab?)

[wushuliu]

Gave it a shot with some teflon silverplated copper had lying around that I hate. Sure enough first few minutes had that hard spc sound, but on the flip side it seemed like there was really good separation of instruments and especially vocals, more ambience (?). After a half hour I realized the spc signature had faded and I was just enjoying the music. Spacious. Subtle though, could be imaginary. Took them off couple hours later. I'll put the 'earrings' back on tomorrow night and compare again. Maybe I'll make an attempt at the proper recipe, as I could use a solder pot anyway and want to learn how to use one w/ litz wire for speaker cables, tonearm wire, etc.