Entreq:
Ground Boxes & Grounding Kits
Entreq Ground Boxes & Grounding Kits
The ground boxes are perhaps the most fundamental part of the Entreq philosophy and it is what they are most well known for, they offer a substantial upgrade to the performance of any system when you connect up your components to a ground box.
Because all equipment is different the requirements from system to system will vary, which is why there is such an extensive range of ground boxes available.
If Entreq interconnects, speaker cables and power cables are introduced into a system they can be grounded as well, further enhancing overall performance. Many Entreq cables comes complete with ground cables and a ground box included so they form a neat solution in one box.
What do the Ground Boxes do?
All hi-fi systems have pollutants in the signal path which get in the way of the delicate musical signal, caused by factors such as stray magnetic currents and excessive noise in power supplies. These are caused by a number of factors in the modern home, computers using switched mode power supplies, routers, mobile phone chargers, fridge freezers, dishwashers, kettles, the list goes on and on. All of these products contribute to having a negative effect on the performance of your hi-fi system. Go around your home and count just how many devices you have permanently powered on; they all have a detrimental effect on system performance. Also the components in a hi-fi system can also be noisy themselves, due to larger transformers etc.
This noise gets passed around the components in your system via the cables and collectively it can mask a systems ability to produce fine detail and effect how a system performs. You won’t be familiar with with is happening in your system until you remove the noise.
All Entreq ground boxes are passive and have nothing to do with protective ground. Connecting a box to your system couldn’t be simpler. Entreq ground cables are available with various types of connections on them such as RCA, XLR, USB and RJ45 . You simply connect a cable to an appropriate unused RCA socket on your amplifier for example; the other end of the cable connects to a terminal on the back of the ground box with a simple hook connector.
This connection creates, in effect, a drain for each piece of grounded equipment and removes the pollutants present in the signal path. How quickly this works does vary from system to system and component to component as well. It is quite often something you will hear instantly, but it typically takes 2 or 3 songs before getting an indication that something is changing, but it generally takes a solid day of being connected before it’s working to its best.
One of the first things people notice is a reduction in coarseness and grain (even where you don’t think it’s present) and the creation of an inky black background is another thing which occurs. This allows the music to flow more naturally with focus, stability and improved harmonics and dynamics. Simply put the box is dropping the noise floor.
As you move through the range of boxes you get more flexibility and greater performance (this is system dependent), certain boxes have greater capacity over others so can remove more noise (ideal if you want to connect multiple items to one box).
“It’s not the notes you play, it’s the notes you don’t play” – Miles Davis
Recently one of my customers said to me after a visit – “the improvement is as much as about what you don’t hear”, the lowering of noise floor allows subtle previous unheard nuances and textures in your music to really jump out.
What can you connect a ground box to? Pretty much whatever you want in reality!
Integrated amplifiers, pre-amps, DAC’s, CD players and CD transports, music streamers, routers, NAS drives, the lists goes on and on!
Please do not underestimate or overlook the benefit of adding an Entreq Ground Box into your system. I have done countless demonstrations for customers who have initially been very sceptical or dismissive over the concept, but I can confidently say that the vast majority of these demonstrations result in someone purchasing a ground box and a selection of cables to connect to the components in their system and they have been delighted with the end result.
Entreq Grounding Kits
The grounding kits are designed to give people a flavour of what Entreq grounding is all about, they wanted to launch something more affordable that could serve as introduction to the brand to those with more modest systems, the Macro Kit, Macro Twin Kit and the Silver Argo Kit offer complete grounding solutions at all new price points for Entreq
The Macro Kit is £400, the Macro Twin Kit is £800 as is the Silver Argo Kit and they are all listed below
In each kit you get a ground box and a ground cable so you have everything you require in one simple package. You can obviously choose what termination you require for the ground cable (RCA, XLR, USB, RJ45, Spade).
The cable that comes Macro Kit (and Macro Twin Kit) outperforms the old entry level Copper Infinity, this cable can’t be purchased on its own. The Silver Argo kit comes with an Argo cable.
To get set up couldn’t be simpler, connect one end of the ground cable to the ground box. Take the termination that came with your kit and connect it to the other end of the ground cable, this then connects into whichever device you intend to ‘ground’ on an unused connection, integrated amplifier, CD player, Melco, Router, Switch etc.
Entreq Ground Boxes
Ground the Speaker Outputs of your Amplifier
One other application you can do on certain ground boxes which is proving incredibly popular is grounding the speaker outputs on your integrated amplifier or power amplifier.
To do this you need to independent ground boxes, you could use a Macro Twin Kit or 2 x Silver Argo Kits, 2 x Olympus Ten Tungstens or 2 of the 3 posts on a Tellus 2 Infinity or Poseidon.
You could also use 2 of the posts on the new Olympus Pluton, Olympus TenTen and Olympus Hero as well along with 2 suitable ground cables, Apollo Infinity is the most popular grounding cable for this application. You simply connect one box to the left negative speaker terminal on your amplifier and the other box to your right negative speaker terminal on your amplifier.
I must stress that NOTHING else can share the post you are using other than this one connection from your negative outputs. Damage may occur if you ground another component to the same post, or if you ground your speaker outputs together on the same post, if you are in any doubt whatsoever please ask!
This is a demonstration which I particularly enjoy as I love watching my customers’ faces as they hear the impact this can have on performance. I recently did this with a Poseidon where the effects were huge and instantly audible, the scale of the system opened up and things become really holographic in presentation.
After leaving this with the customer for a week I returned and simply disconnected them. All of a sudden his system sounded forward, thin and congested. Needless to say an order was forthcoming shortly afterwards!
Please note: You cannot ground your amplifiers negative speaker outlets using a single Silver Tellus, an original Tellus or an Olympus Tellus as the grounding posts on these boxes are all common, they are NOT independent like the outlets on the Tellus II, Tellus II Infinity, the Poseidon or the smaller single post boxes.
If you are using single cell boxes like Minimus, Silver Minimus, Olympus Ten and Olympus Minimus you can only use a PAIR of boxes. You cannot use one box for both connections. If you are in any doubt ask first or arrange for it to be installed!
Ground the ringmain your Hi-Fi is connected to
One incredibly effective thing you can do to your system is to connect a ground box and cable to your mains supply. Even if you do nothing else with your system with regard to Entreq, by connecting to the ringmain we are dramatically lowering the noise floor and removing noise on the mains before we even get to the hi-fi. We are NOT replacing protective earth by doing this.
This can be a brilliant upgrade and is really simple to do. All you require is an Entreq ground cable with the correct connector, this safely plugs into an unused wall socket (this connector only connects to the earth pin), the other end of the cable has a hook connection and this is connected to your ground box. From a performance point of view it is highly recommend to not share this ground box with anything else.
In terms of a ground box, the bigger the better generally – I have had good results using the smaller boxes, but with a larger box (which has much more capacity) the results are significantly better. The small boxes are good in the role, but the bigger the better for this application generally.
This is an incredibly effective demonstration and one which always delivers brilliant results. Mains power is a dirty thing and although it’s a necessary evil for most things, the delicate audio signal is easily polluted and degraded by it. Arrange a demonstration and find out for yourself! It doesn’t matter if you hi-fi is on its own ringmain or not, this work really well regardless.
