Nordost QKore grounding unit

It is similar to the car audio power block. I would go with the car audio block, as it has a transparent plastic case and simply looks much nicer. They work exactly the same. All you are interested in is thick wire (lower resistance) and firm contact.

The car audio power block I have posted before has 8 openings for 8 AWG wire and 2 for 4 AWG wire. Use the 8 AWG ones to connect to your equipment and 4 AWG one to connect to the ground.

I already have all the parts needed to DIY such a grounding arrangement - just didn't have the time to do it.
 
Elberoth said:
It is similar to the car audio power block. I would go with the car audio block, as it has a transparent plastic case and simply looks much nicer. They work exactly the same. All you are interested in is thick wire (lower resistance) and firm contact.

The car audio power block I have posted before has 8 openings for 8 AWG wire and 2 for 4 AWG wire. Use the 8 AWG ones to connect to your equipment and 4 AWG one to connect to the ground.

I already have all the parts needed to DIY such a grounding arrangement - just didn't have the time to do it.
Click to expand...

What will this accomplish in comparison to just use power cables with ground and a proper power distribution block?

Will you connect the cat audio block to the ground of your house or?
 
Elberoth said:
It is similar to the car audio power block. I would go with the car audio block, as it has a transparent plastic case and simply looks much nicer. They work exactly the same. All you are interested in is thick wire (lower resistance) and firm contact.

The car audio power block I have posted before has 8 openings for 8 AWG wire and 2 for 4 AWG wire. Use the 8 AWG ones to connect to your equipment and 4 AWG one to connect to the ground.

I already have all the parts needed to DIY such a grounding arrangement - just didn't have the time to do it.
Click to expand...

This is interesting, I am also about to order the parts. They should arrive within two days and it basically should be 30 minutes to install it.

Would you have a link to the car block as well by any chance?

If it works similarly I definitely prefer this to the 6-7K Nordost solution (incl. cables).

Appreciate your support on this.


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Btw, where would the car block connect to? Just the wall, a water pipe, electrical socket with corresponding plug?


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Elberoth said:
May actually work even better, due to larger openings for bigger wires (bigger wire = lower resistance = better grounding).

IMO the biggest problem with the devices from Nordost, Synergistic etc. is the tiny wires they use.
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I'm not sure where you're going with this. Are you implying that Nordost simply never thought of trying thicker cables? It's an easy upsell opportunity, why wouldn't they offer better cables if it improved performance. I expect that they found that thicker cables really didn't add anything to the performance of this particular product and so there is no need other than to satisfy people who think thicker cable=better cable which are going to be a minority of a minority and if they're that fixated on cable size there's always Entreq and the like where I assume thicker cables actually do improve performance on those products.
 
I think the car audio approach might be better than tampering with any electrical system in the house. There are quite a few prerequisites to be met.

https://www.yshield.com/eu/grounding-instructions-feb

Maybe this is a motivation for a completely independent grounding approach as taken by Nordost or Synergistic.


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Bar81 said:
I'm not sure where you're going with this. Are you implying that Nordost simply never thought of trying thicker cables? It's an easy upsell opportunity, why wouldn't they offer better cables if it improved performance. I expect that they found that thicker cables really didn't add anything to the performance of this particular product and so there is no need other than to satisfy people who think thicker cable=better cable which are going to be a minority of a minority and if they're that fixated on cable size there's always Entreq and the like where I assume thicker cables actually do improve performance on those products.
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Some manufacturers actually already thought about this!

Entreq and Tripoint actually sell more expensive silver cables as an option (silver has lower resistance for the same diameter). Not sure if they are thicker at the same time. Might be.

Knowing this hobby all to well, I expect others to follow.
 
So Nordost didn't explore it is what you are saying. That's hard to believe.
 
Mordante said:
What will this accomplish in comparison to just use power cables with ground and a proper power distribution block?

Will you connect the cat audio block to the ground of your house or?
Click to expand...

That is a very interesting question! Since most (all?) modern components are grounded by default, none of those 'aux ground' systems should work. And yet they do. IMO this shows that there is a tiny bit of performance that can be squeezed by improved grounding. My guess is that it will be very system dependent.

My understanding is that idea is to to have as short as possible component to component connections to better / easier equalise the ground potential of individual system components.
 
Nordost's QKORE system does more than just provide a common ground connection point between components, which is what many of the alternatives being suggested in this thread would do. The first difference in their system is that it provides a method for providing an artificial clean ground point, which is described as using "Low-Voltage Attractor Plates (LVAPs), constructed with a proprietary metal alloy and a passive electronic circuit, in order to draw stray high frequency noise and voltage-generated magnetic fields to a manufactured earth point leaving a clean reference behind." Their complete system also provides isolated independently filtered ground points for your power distribution and signal grounds. While many may question how effective or necessary such a grounding system may be, it seems that most audiophiles who have actually experienced it have reported significant sonic improvements with its use. While it is not by any means an inexpensive system, it should be noted that there are some other grounding solutions which are even more expensive. The word on the street among many audiophiles who have auditioned the QKORE system is to avoid trying it in your system unless you can afford it, since once you hear the improvement provided it's very difficult to live without. Of course YMMV applies as with all things in high end audio.
 
I implemented the Nordost QKore 6, and it was not cheap, but less than a component.

This is a passive grounding and does not plug in to your mains. I created a separate string in the forum regarding grounding my sub panel

QKore conductor cables are silver plated, solid core pure Copper, 16 AWG solid core.

The results were far from subtle, adding another part to a whole in support of the foundation. The first went to my distribution, the other 5 went to various pieces.

They do offer different plugs (XLR, RCA, BNC, RJ45) on the cables where I used one for my AQVox SE switch. Here is where they should supply all six cables versus the 2 that come with QKore 6 and offer you a choice for connections.

While I’m all in Nordost, and equate this to contributing to my overall sound, I must say in reflection it’s too expensive even for me but when I turn the system on, and even more so after warm up I literally don’t move and invite anyone to my room as proof.

There are a few other options out there, and I only listened and seen Entreq, and aware of Synergistic which seems to give you more for less.

Hope this helps in some way.




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audio.bill said:
Nordost's QKORE system does more than just provide a common ground connection point between components, which is what many of the alternatives being suggested in this thread would do. The first difference in their system is that it provides a method for providing an artificial clean ground point, which is described as using "Low-Voltage Attractor Plates (LVAPs), constructed with a proprietary metal alloy and a passive electronic circuit, in order to draw stray high frequency noise and voltage-generated magnetic fields to a manufactured earth point leaving a clean reference behind." Their complete system also provides isolated independently filtered ground points for your power distribution and signal grounds. While many may question how effective or necessary such a grounding system may be, it seems that most audiophiles who have actually experienced it have reported significant sonic improvements with its use. While it is not by any means an inexpensive system, it should be noted that there are some other grounding solutions which are even more expensive. The word on the street among many audiophiles who have auditioned the QKORE system is to avoid trying it in your system unless you can afford it, since once you hear the difference it's very difficult to live without it. Of course YMMV applies as with all things in high end audio.
Click to expand...

Hi Bill, as I am not familiar with the technology, what are Low Voltage Attractor Plates, technically speaking?


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As noted above, we need to get past the notion of naysayers that there's a small improvement using such units. In my system, a single CAD Ground Control GC1 brought about a substantial performance improvement. It was quite a surprise as I didn't expect anything.
 
I would love to see the Nordost taken apart. I have once taken apart Shunyata Hydra-6 and ... well the story didn't end up well for Hydra-6.

I'm surprised that publications like Stereophile do not publish the pictures of components' innards.
 
Elberoth said:
I would love to see the Nordost taken apart. I have once taken apart Shunyata Hydra-6 and ... well the story didn't end up well for Hydra-6.

I'm surprised that publications like Stereophile do not publish the pictures of components' innards.
Click to expand...

It may deter buyers after seeing the simplicity of it all.

Like I said, in my “grounding, it ain’t no joke” post the gains were well above subtle in my system and it cost $93.00 (.0003 of my system) plus a beer to KingRex, a Master Electrician by trade.


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Mordante said:
What will this accomplish in comparison to just use power cables with ground and a proper power distribution block?

Will you connect the cat audio block to the ground of your house or?
Click to expand...

IMO the same, the larger earth cable of the Ansuz system already has lower resistance, which should reduce any equalizing between your equipment over the signal cables.
 
The question comes down to:

a] do you want a 'good-engineering-practice' ground system, like:

Grounding Systems

SPIGP :: Single Point Isolated Ground Plane
SRPP :: System Reference Potential Plane
STGP :: Signal Transport Ground Plane
ZSRG :: Zero Signal Reference Grid
ZSRG :: Zero Signal Reference Conductors
ZSRP :: Zero Signal Reference Potential
ZSRP :: Zero Signal Reference Plane
MESH-CBN :: Meshed Common Bonding Network
MESH-IBN :: Meshed Isolated Bonding Network
PEC :: Paralleled Earth Conductors
PBC :: Paralleled Bonding Conductors

b] or do you want an audiophile grounding system?

* * * * * * * * * *
Note 1:
A flat copper braid or strap is a much better choice than any of the aftermarket cables.

Note 2:
The basic definition for 'ground' is:
A common reference point.
 
I forgot to mention:
Bad electricity never goes TO ground, but it might go THRU ground back to it's source.
And what is it's source?
The source is that big power company transformer down the street.
 
Speedskater said:
The basic definition for 'ground' is:
A common reference point.
[/FONT]
Click to expand...

For any of these passive components, I think this is exactly what they do. Nothing less, nothing more. Therefore I presume it improves the sound by way of reducing ground load fluctuations when the signal travels through different components.

Hence, I bought 10 awg strands of flexible copper wire and a selection of different types of connectors to connect to an idle input of each component. The other end goes to a 5 kg pure copper bar to give them common ground.

Let’s see what happens [emoji3].


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