Entreq grounding boxes

[Womaz]

The lad who advises me on my Hifi reckons the Entreq gear will help to reduce my brightness issues. I am a little sceptical, but then I was about stillpoints until I tried them ...its an interesting hobby

[PhilP]

Someone on Pinkfish has suggested that the filler in the Entreq boxes looks like granulated copper slag which is used for shot-blasting metal (prices from $100 per metric tonne). Google it and and you will find plenty of photos. It certainly does look like that material.

[PhilP]

...
One notable experiment which I think I reported on here involved comparing a Linn Akurate DSM to a Totaldac d1 server with both connected to the Devialet master at the same time. Toggling between the two it was very easy to hear which one was the Akurate DSM (and I'm pretty sure I could have done that unsighted). The Akurate sounded "dull" whereas the the Totaldac sounded lively. After grounding the Akurate using an Entreq cable (connected to a ground box) it became very difficult to tell the difference between the two sources (in classic A/B testing). The Totaldac was not grounded in this experiment. I found this result to be almost a smoking gun in proving (to myself!) that the Entreq system was doing something. 

...

Guillaume

Well, I guess that observation ties in with Frank's suggestion that the Entreq boxes may actually be injecting more noise into the system making it sound subjectively brighter and more open.

[PhilP]

The lad who advises me on my Hifi reckons the Entreq gear will help to reduce my brightness issues. I am a little sceptical, but then I was about stillpoints until I tried them ...its an interesting hobby

Worth trying but in Guillaume's case it made the Linn Akurate sound brighter.

[GuillaumeB]

The lad who advises me on my Hifi reckons the Entreq gear will help to reduce my brightness issues. I am a little sceptical, but then I was about stillpoints until I tried them ...its an interesting hobby

Worth trying but in Guillaume's case it made the Linn Akurate sound brighter.

It didn't make the Linn Akurate sound bright, it made it sound more like the Totaldac. Like I said it was difficult to differentiate between the two when toggling rapidly between the two (both were setup to play the same music).

Given the trouble that Vincent has gone through to remove noise from the Totaldac I find it difficult to believe that the Akurate with noise added sounds more like the Totaldac. Remember the Totaldac is one of the best sources I have heard bar the Melco N1Z.

Guillaume

[PhilP]

The lad who advises me on my Hifi reckons the Entreq gear will help to reduce my brightness issues. I am a little sceptical, but then I was about stillpoints until I tried them ...its an interesting hobby

Worth trying but in Guillaume's case it made the Linn Akurate sound brighter.

It didn't make the Linn Akurate sound bright, it made it sound more like the Totaldac. Like I said it was difficult to differentiate between the two when toggling rapidly between the two (both were setup to play the same music).

Given the trouble that Vincent has gone through to remove noise from the Totaldac I find it difficult to believe that the Akurate with noise added sounds more like the Totaldac. Remember the Totaldac is one of the best sources I have heard bar the Melco N1Z.

Guillaume

Oh, ok, you said the Akurate sounded 'dull' without the Entreq boxes... I thought you meant dull in comparison to the TotalDAC ??? Semantics really but I read your 'lively' as brighter

As Frank said "Added noise gives the impression of greater stereo depth and width...... it is a real effect which I have had demonstrated to me in the past and liked."

[GuillaumeB]

Oh, ok, you said the Akurate sounded 'dull' without the Entreq boxes... I thought you meant dull in comparison to the TotalDAC ???  Semantics really but I read your 'lively' as brighter

I'm detecting a little mischievousness here PhilP!

Indeed your previous posts suggest to me that you are trying to stir things up, in a rather playful manner of course. 

Guillaume

[PhilP]

Indeed your previous posts suggest to me that you are trying to stir things up, in a rather playful manner of course. 

Guillaume

The forum has been rather dull recently. Perhaps injecting a little noise (or indeed a few facts) will help to liven or brighten things up ?

The truth is I don't find the grounding explanation convincing particularly now that the contents of the box have been revealed. Entreq themselves supposedly only discovered the claimed positive effects of their boxes by accident. Frank's explantation seems more plausible to me.

[Confused]

CAD had a similar device on demo at Oxford Audio last Saturday.  When I say similar, it was in fact very different.  This is a simple black box, made of metal and is filled with electronics (I'm not sure what), not with soil, minerals etc.  This was a one off prototype unit, which if I recall correctly, will retail for about £1400.  The similarity is the claim that it can reduce unwanted RFI interference etc.  Something to look out for in the future.

Very interesting...

Bit off-topic but did you get to hear the new ChordMusic cables?

Guillaume

Indeed I did.  However, it was a case of running through three cables at ever increasing price levels, play one track, swap cable, play same track, repeat.  All this in an unfamiliar system, but a system that does share similarities with the one I have at home, this was Aurednder W20, D800, KEF reference 3.  In same ways rather different to the Blades +D800, in other respects not.  All slightly confusing, so I certainly cannot draw any conclusions from what I heard.  One thing though, I did start to think that the system sounded best with the Chord Signature USB, the cheapest they demoed at about £400, as it took a touch of brightness / harshness out of the highs.  In these circumstances, I could easily have been kidding myself, and this was with just one track, with another piece of music the result may have been very different.   Another conclusion was that the system sounded much better with the Sarum speaker cables vs the Chord Epic Reference.  Curiously, I listened to both of these speaker cables with a D400 and KEF Blades a while back, and to be honest could not tell any difference.  I think the only conclusion is that a proper test over time, with a large selection of source material is needed to form a sensible conclusion.
The other interesting thing on demo was the CAD CAT music player.  This is an interesting beast.  Cynics will dismiss this as an overpriced modified computer.  However, in the ever changing world of music streaming this machine does offer a very high degree of flexibility, futureproofing and does looks very thoroughly put together.  This is even more off topic, but worth a mention I think.  I'll post a new thread on this one when I have a bit more time.

[GuillaumeB]

The other interesting thing on demo was the CAD CAT music player. 

I'd be interested to hear more about this.

Guillaume