Just realized that CGS is mentioned. When you said v3 includes advanced CGS, what will be the differences vs. CGS in v2? Is it because of improved NIC or any other technology improvement?
Typhon QR
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Just realized that CGS is mentioned. When you said v3 includes advanced CGS, what will be the differences vs. CGS in v2? Is it because of improved NIC or any other technology improvement?
CGS: Chassis Grounding System
The CGS system was introduced with the Triton v2 model. It was not part of the Triton v1. The CGS system is same in both the Tv2 and the Tv3.
If you like I can post a copy of the CGS User Guide.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/sp57hyu4fxpywho/CGS Guide v3.pdf?dl=0
Hope this helps,
Crumhorn
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Does the ground terminal on the Denali 6000T offer similar benefits to to CGS, or is it just a common grounding point, without the filtering(?) of the CGS?
I have a Typhon QR incoming. It shipped today.
Kuoppis
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Caelin, so your product has grounding, major thing really. So how much is it for the grounding, maybe 2-3K?
All products I have in my system have grounding. Part of the package. Can’t really build electronic products w/o grounding, can you?
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All products have PCB grounds, ground planes, chassis grounds and signal grounds. But how much attention has been given by the designer of the product to how the signal return paths and chassis grounds relate to one another is critical to performance. Grounding is just another of the design elements that we haven't really talked about over the years. But more and more people are recognizing the importance of a good system-wide grounding system. I really think that a lot credit needs to go to Entreq for being a pioneer in advancing this aspect to system performance.
All Hydra products going back to the year 2000 have had extensive attention given to the ground plane. The Triton v2 was simply an idea to provide accessability to the internal ground system of the Triton to the other equipment in the system.
Whether or not you use a 'special' grounding system to connect your components, it is important to (at a minimum) to connect all your components to a single ground point. This helps to minimize grounds loops and lowers overall system ground plane noise.
The Denali products do not have an internal NIC to treat ground plane noise. However, the Denali's have easily accessible, high quality, ground lugs to provide a single point to ground all of your components together. Simply connecting all your equipment chassis to a single common ground point is a very significant performance advantage. Most people do not take advantage of this very simple concept of system wide grounding. System wide grounding does not need to be a complicated or expensive affair. If you have a Denali take advantage of this simple concept. You may be surprised at the improvements available.
Read the CGS User Guide because all of the connection principles also apply to the Denali.
Crumhorn
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Thanks, Caelin, for your availability & prompt response! Your participation in these forums is valuable and appreciated!
Kuoppis
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Thank you for your elaborate response. So we agree grounding is very important. Maybe I was just perplexed by the accentuated use of acronyms, instead of e.g. calling grounding just grounding.
But this raises another question: in your view, is the audio system grounding question resolved with the elaborate grounding provided by the Triton v2 onwards? Is grounding via the power cable sufficient to address grounding issues?
The reason why I am asking is that another player in the market has introduced a completely separate grounding solution for audio systems. Based on what you describe, shouldn’t that be provided by the grounding from the Triton v2 onwards? Yet I’ve heard system demos with that other grounding solution installed and removed, and there was a difference. Isn’t e.g. a turntable also usually grounded separately, in addition to the grounding provided through the power cable?
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Bar81
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I've also never been clear as to why any separate grounding system is needed? Isn't everything grounded by plugging all components into the Triton?
Kuoppis
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While I am not postulating this to be the case, this is exactly my question to Caelin and I would be interested in his response.
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The audio hobby is riddled with a veritable mountain of acronyms, not unlike the legal, medical or scientific industries. So, I understand your issue with their use. However, this is the Shunyata Research forum and the people asking the questions are Shunyata Research owners. So, I assume that you are somewhat familiar our technologies and acronyms. If someone doesn't understand an acronym or a terminology or a proprietary technology, I would be happy to explain it. I use the acronym CGS so that I don't have to type "chassis grounding system" over and over again.
Communication on forums or in email is somewhat difficult because the intent or attitude behind a comment can be lost. Your emphasis on "elaborate response" above, to me, implies a somewhat sarcastic tone. If I am mistaken in that, please elaborate.
I am here simply to represent Shunyata Research and our products and to provide an authoritative source of information about the products and the associated technologies. I always attempt to keep responses as clear and brief as necessary to explain a question or subject. I will usually warn the readers if a response is going to get long or involved. There are many people on the forum that have different levels of technical knowledge and different styles of communication. Some people like a quick, to the point, answer. Others prefer a more details and complete explanation. So, I need to strike a balance in my responses which I apparently have not done for you.
Simple answer: No and (it depends)
The word "ground" is just a word and one that is used in many different contexts. It only has a technical meaning in very narrowly defined contexts. It can mean a trace on a PCB (printed circuit board); a wire in a component that is a signal return path; a wire in a power cord; a wire in an XLR cable; a safety ground in AC wall wiring; and the list goes on. From a strictly technical point of view, grounds and grounding are not at all simple.
There are many manufacturers of grounding boxes with different technologies or points of view on it. Which specific product are you talking about? Entreq, Tripoint, Telos, Synergistic, Nordost etc.
Let's just put aside and "special" ground technologies for the moment. If you want to understand ground issues I would suggest reading the following as a primer. If you want to discuss ground issues in general, there are many threads that are miles long about it.
An Overview of Audio System Grounding and Interfacing
Author: Bill Whitlock
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Then if you want a deeper understanding move on to more reading.
Power and Grounding for Audio and Video Systems
Author: Jim Brown
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Sound System Interconnection
Source: RaneNote 110
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Grounding and Shielding Audio Devices
Source: RaneNote 110
---
Ground Loops: The Rest of the Story
Author: Bill Whitlock
Crumhorn
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If you read the "CGS User Guide" that Caelin provided a link to in in post #64 above, that question is answered, as well as some of the other questions raised. (Spoiler: yes, everything plugged into the Triton shares a common ground, but some components benefit from additionally being connected to the CGS.)
It seems to me that some of the posters are conflating the recommendation of a common ground point for one's whole system with something like the CGS. The CGS is not just a common ground point, it is a "filtered" common ground point. (I know that Shunyata & others dislike the use of the term "filter"...) The CGS runs the common ground through some of the same filtering that is applied to the power in the Triton. The Entreq, Nordost, Synergistic Research, et al grounding systems all apply some form of "conditioning" to the common ground they supply, all claiming that this conditioning provides a far superior result to just providing a common ground point. But all agree that having one's entire system share a common ground point is important, and can bring sonic benefits, even without the use of their (varyingly pricey) products. As per Caelin's reply to my question above (post #69), the Denali series provides a ground lug to serve as a common ground point, but it is just that and no more - it does not make use of any of the Denali filtering.
Kuoppis
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Caelin, I understand the benefit of acronyms, having worked quite a long time in telecoms. My comment was sarcastic only to the extent to which acronyms are not meaningful. If a cryptic abbreviation must be used to make talking about a simple thing more interesting, power to you.
You just said it yourself, the Triton v2 grounding magic you praised and so elaborately filled with acronyms does not solve grounding issues. Some yes, others not. And I was talking about Nordost passive grounding. Did not want to pin it on your nose, but you asked.
My enquiry about the Triton arises from the fact that I saw a big box full of nothing on your stand in Munich. Peeking inside a Niagara is definitely more interesting.
Btw, IMHO an answer ‘read a book’ to someone who owns 10-15K worth of your products is an extremely weak one. But that’s just me.
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Sorry for parsing your response into so many separate answers but to have a clear answer I felt it necessary to separate certain points.
I am going to assume that most people reading this thread will not read all or even any of the source materials that I have referenced. I don't blame you. Once you take a look at the documents, it is clear that it is going to take a lot of time to wade through it even if you have an electrical or electronics background.
But without an understand of the AC Mains electrical system grounding and neutrals system and of the disparate methods of connecting "signal grounds" within an audio component, you will never truly understand the complex interactions that can occur in the audio system.
There are "chassis grounds" and "signal grounds". There are DC currents that travel through ground connections. There are AC line frequency signals that are imposed on ground connections. There are RF (radio frequency) signals that are virtually always present on ground wires and connections. How the individual system is wired with both power cabling and with different types of signal cabling can dramatically affect performance.
So the answer to your point about hearing a difference when XYZ was changed: Yes, anytime you change something in the grounding system, you will likely hear a difference. But that doesn't necessarily mean that the change was better or worse. It may be that it is just different. Some of the grounding systems can actually introduce a pathway for RF noise into the audio system.
Before anyone invests in a separate grounding box from anyone you should first establish a good baseline grounding system. As you implied earlier, a good power distributor 'should' connect all the audio components to a 'common ground'. That ground is the ground connection within the power distributor which is in turn connected directly to the AC inlet ground wire. So you are right in saying that the power cord should be grounding the component. That is unless that power cord has a disabled ground pin or cheater plug is used. And some equipment manufacturers intentionally don't have a ground pin connection in their AC inlet. Another issue may be that the impedance of power cords is not the same. And what seems like small differences in impedance can have significant impact on perceived performance.
So, a good power distributor with power cords that have adequate, intact ground wiring is a good starting point. But what happens when you have multiple AC circuits in the system? Now there isn't a single ground source, there are two. How do those two interact within the system? So in these systems it is beneficial to make sure the grounds are all at the same potential (voltage level). This is why we have ground lugs on the back of many of our power conditioners. For instance some people use a Denali D6000T for source equipment and a Denali D2000T to power the amplifiers. The D6000 and D2000 have ground lugs on the back so that the user can connect a large gauge ground wire from one to the other. This helps to minimize ground potential differences (ground loops).
Kuoppis
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Thank you, your response is greatly appreciated. I don’t pretend to understand even a fraction of what you know about power management, so my questions are genuine. As a non-expert I am voting with my $$, but I desire good answers in return.
I do have an inquisitive nature and might ask uncomfortable questions, that does not mean I do not love my Shunyata products. I have plenty and think they are some of my best components.
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Just to expand upon this; the words 'filtered' and 'conditioned' and 'isolated' are all just ways of saying that in some manner that the noise level on the ground is reduced. We can get lost in semantics.
And to be very clear about it, there is NO method that completely eliminates ground noise. It is all relative levels of reduction. not absolute. There are many common methods to achieve this including the use of coils, baluns, common-mode filters, ferromagnetic metals and others including the patented use of ferroelectric compounds as used in our NIC (noise isolation chambers).
Methods that should not be used are those that insert a relay or solid-state component like an SCR or transistor in the safety ground path. These methods violate NEC code in the US and CE in EU countries. The safety ground was introduced many decades ago and is now a requirement in electrical code. Its sole purpose is to protect the consumer from electrical shock and to prevent fire. It has no other purpose and should not be defeated for any reason.
No worries mate. I just wanted to be sure that you don't think I am ducking a question. I don't mind answering questions. But if it gets contentious or degenerates into forum flame wars, I simply check out. Don't really have time or patience for that.
I will answer any question to best of my ability but sometimes the underlying technicality of the issue can make the answer seem overly complex as you pointed out. But, the complexity is sometimes necessary to be accurate. Otherwise, an overly simple answer opens the door for criticism about the technical accuracy of the answer. You understand?