XLR AES Ground Lift Experiments

[hardcore]

@hardcore
I disconnected ground on the Neutrik NADITBNC-MX (pin 1) when I used a Squeezebox Touch as a streamer to AES on my D-Premier many years ago. The gain in clarity was easy to hear. At the time I thought it was noise on the ground plane of the Touch, but it may well have been other things too...

Thanks for sharing! I am doing the same now, I actually lift the ground on both ends of the AES cable between my Singxer SU-6 DDC and the Devialet AES input. What prompted me to try this was I have a Toslink cable connecting the same devices for testing, and surprisingly found the optical cable to sound better in some ways (more open, clear, less sibilant). With the ground lifted, I prefer the AES cable now, it sounds a little more dynamic compared to the Toslink.

Also it was an even bigger difference when I ground lifted the RCA-AES link cable for the Master-Companion.

I am still surprised how much the sound changes on the Devialet with these sort of digital signal cable tweaks.