Electrical Grounding, AIN’T NO JOKE...

UltraFast69

UltraFast69

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Like many of you, I have been chasing the audio dragon; highly addictive, easily compulsive and often sprinkled with emotion.

After much time assembling a punch lists of rights and wrongs I stayed the course with knowledge I have assembled highlighting power, cables, room acoustics and isolation all in support of some really great gear.

Today, I believe I have reached a level of appreciation for what I am hearing after much work, expense and time - is there more to learn, you bet.

In the final steps of this system assembly, I shout out publicly an acknowledgment to my friend Rex, aka “King Rex”. His electrical efforts this weekend allowed my sound to reach crazy levels of goodness. Rex is a Master Electrician and an Audiophile Junkie.

Jaw dropping sound was reached by addressing electrical grounding. We burrowed in 40 degree weather two 8’ copper grounding rods and connected these with heavy gauge copper wire that have been deoxited and wrap sealed then leading to the sub panel which house dedicated circuits feeding my music room - this process while simple, was initiated unlike much of the contractor grade installation on the main panel which I believe is why the benefit is so great. Now both the main panel and the sub panel have two rods each. Grounding off the sub panel was well beyond what I thought could be achieved and thee most cost effective solution to date bringing everything I have assembled into a world class SOTA audio system open for any challenge!

Immediately the system played at a level more superior than previous. Music easily played with more openness, timbre and decay thanks to a blacker background. As I’m listening at 25% volume sounds more like 30-40% did previous, efficiency appears to have been gained. Across the range, particularly the low end, the mono’s have always displayed a tight grip on the speakers, but now that grip has succumbed to a bionic like grip, think, Colonel Steve Austin. This now is so easily demonstrated across genre and also passes my piano test, a major benchmark I look for in performance - I cannot explain this.

All the effort and expense of putting the pieces together as a complete sound have now paid off thanks to $93.00 in copper grounding rods, clamps and sealant coupled with the efforts of Rex.

I am immensely enjoying Audio Bliss and Nirvana, so thank you Rex and all the forum members. I hope this helps someone someday think about these options in high end audio. And remember always use a qualified master electrician.

The pictures below show both grounding rods and the power jack that drove these into planet earth.

Make Your Sound Possible.

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Congrats, great job. VERY happy for you that it worked out so well.
Can you explain more about wrapping them?
Did you use the Cadweld system to attach the ground wire to the ground rods?
 
Thanks Ed. Always a pleasure to hang out and listen to tunes with you. What an amazing setup you have built. I'm just blown away by its power, scale and resolution.

I use #2 THWN and only open the casing at the rod. I deox the wire and rod at the connection. I wrap the connection point with splicing tape, then regular electrical tape. I use an acorn connector. I don't cad weld. IMO that is adding a lot of material that is not copper to the connection. With the deox and tape I am confident the connection will remain clean and highly conductive for years to come.
 
Circling back to this, it got me thinking what is going on to realize this level of performance.

A while back I listened to what the Nordost QKore grounding system was accomplishing, then purchased one and while it contributed a positive difference to my sound, I needed to go back and read what they wrote to better understand this.

When we think electrical grounding, we think safety but here are the additional benefits Nordost spells out for Audio Junkies like us and points out their option is good for people who do not have their own dedicated lines that are grounded, and grounding my existing circuit at the sub panel is precisely what I just did.

“A great deal of the electrical noise in hifi systems is caused by imperfections in the power domain. These imperfections may be generated by airborne pollution on the AC line that are induced, in part, by increasing amounts of Bluetooth, Wi-Fi (I have 31 connected devices in my home according to my Eeros Mesh network), and cellular signals. Airborne pollution can take the form of high frequency interference, noise, and stray magnetic fields, which lead to AC line contamination. A poor, or “unclean”, ground causes more performance imperfections than most people realize. Without an effective ground point, the entire foundation of your sound system becomes jeopardized—and unfortunately, most listening rooms simply do not have access to a designated line, attached to a ground rod. In these instances, a simple, effective, and internal option is needed: Nordost’s QKORE Ground Unit.”

I am not pushing Nordost but I am am bringing the two ways this can be done, with both offering results, but grounding at a dedicated circuit breaker box makes a much more significant difference.
 
Kingrex said:
Thanks Ed. Always a pleasure to hang out and listen to tunes with you. What an amazing setup you have built. I'm just blown away by its power, scale and resolution.

I use #2 THWN and only open the casing at the rod. I deox the wire and rod at the connection. I wrap the connection point with splicing tape, then regular electrical tape. I use an acorn connector. I don't cad weld. IMO that is adding a lot of material that is not copper to the connection. With the deox and tape I am confident the connection will remain clean and highly conductive for years to come.
Click to expand...


An interesting approach. I'm curious as to your thoughts on using a jacketed cable vs bare.
While it will be non conductive with the earth on it's length, you still have 2 points of conduction, not an absolute single grounding point.
I have not used the Cadweld system (yet) but it seems like "big time" soldering. Providing a long term secure and permanent bonding.
Have you personal experience with this method vs your bonding type?
Thanks for sharing your professional experiences.
 
Have you measured the grounding resistance? I have been thinking about doing this as well, or having it done. Since it's not easy to do the proper measurements. I would prefer less then 0.5 Ohm.
 
Single point ground???? What about the cold water pipe and existing grounds, as well as possible concrete encased electrode at any location. There are lots of grounds at any one facility or house. I think there is a little blurring going on here between grounding a service and grounding a circuit to your audio rack. I did intentionally keep the new rods away from existing rods to reduce the effect of overlapping ground fields.

If you have ever looked at an existing bare ground wire you will see lots of corrosion on the wire. Since electricity runs on the surface of the wire, the ability to carry micro voltage to ground is greatly diminished in bare wire. THWN jacketed wire will oxidize much slower. coating the wire and rod at the connection point will slow any oxidation where the jacket has been opened. Wrapping the joint keeps it protected and again is doing its part to resist corrosion. In my mind this is far more important than whether the entire ground wire is in contact with the earth or not. It could be said this is far more effective as I have separated the ground planes instead of creating a large overlapping swath.

I don't own a $1800 tool to measure resistance when I know the soil in Seattle is going to adhere well to the rods. We have little sand here. I don't even know you could get .5 ohms. The earth resistance may not be great enough. I have seen an inspector measure a concrete encased electrode at a job and it was 3.5 ohms about 14 feet from the test point. When you drive a rod, you know if its good or not. You can feel the earth bite.
 
I have only tried to attenuate ground noise at the circuit. A certain percentage of equipment uses a separate ground for AC in and the electronics boards. I attach to unused inputs or outputs providing they are not transformer coupled.
 
This is a risky approach to grounding at best, and well-known to be the sort of thing to avoid for good grounding of the house wiring system. The proper grounding is usually not done by a simple copper rod- usually it relies on a pipe or the like which has much greater contact area. There can be differences between what the rod in the garden thinks is ground as opposed to the way the house is actually grounded; when these two do not agree (which is pretty well a guarantee) then Bad Things can happen (an example might be if the panel is "grounded" via copper rod, and you happen to be touching something that is 'grounded' in this manner and any metal plumbing at the same time- zap!). In dry conditions the rod might not be grounded at all, and after a few weeks, its a good bet that its relationship to the earth has changed.

Now it is a good idea to make sure that the house wiring is in fact properly grounded. I think you will find it works even better than a rod in the garden if done properly.

This really isn't a joke- this should be done properly! If an inspector finds something like this, you will get an order to get it fixed.
 
Atmasphere, are you a master electrician like I am with 24 years experience in commercial and residential installations. Are you up to date on all your code required NEC classes for grounding and others such sections of the 2017 NEC. I am. Do you own an electrical contracting company that hires employees like I do. I already cited sections of the NEC that validate my procedure for this project. If you think I did anything incorrect please advise citing the specific code articles in violation. I am willing to amend how I install equipment in the field if I have been taught how to do it wrong.
 
Nope! But I know how audio equipment is supposed to be grounded; got that with the EE. And I've seen enough errors in home electrical wiring that I get really suspicious when I read about things like this. Quite often when this sort of grounding is done, people have RFI problems.

What are you doing to insure that the rod maintains correct impedance (0 ohms)?
 
And one last thing. No one reading this should by any means think reading this is enough information to get into your panel and fiddle around in there. If you screw up, the Arch Flash is close to 35,000*. I hear it said it an instantaneous blast with a BTU output similar to putting a lighter with the flame touching your skin under your hand and letting it burn for 10 seconds. And its the whole of everything in front of it for about a 3 foot diameter. One of the best General Forman I served under was completly disfigured from such a blast. He spend a year in the Harborview Medical burn ward and as far as I know, still goes back quite often to tell new patients its ok, you can keep on living without a face. Hire a professional. I am happy to talk on the phone with anyone you hire and coach them on the specifices of what I like to see done. PM me. They should all be happy to oblige. Some will think you are going overkill. Like, why would you run a wire 2 sized larger than the minimum requirement. It cost more and is harder to work with. Why deox and tape the connections, its a ground, the code does not require it. It will still do the bare minimum in 20 years without bettering the connection. Well, we don't want the bare minimum, we want maximum potential at all times.

You know why a concrete encased electrode and water pipe are such good grounds. The clamps are inside the structure protected from the elements. They don't loose their conductivity so quick. If you have ever seen the connections I run across in the field all the time, its amazing some of the stuff still works. I actually went to my concrete encased electrode a couple months ago and steel wooled the whole connection to get it back to as good as it can be.

Oddly plumbers don't want us connecting to their pipe any more. If there is leaking current, it speeds up the erosion and failure of their equipment. Code still says I have to hit it so if its there I do so. Most are PEX now anyways so it does not matter. I have the general turn out a 20 foot piece of rebar at the base of the foundation and I call the inspector to sign off on it. That is all I need done. From there I run a bare #4 CU wire to the panel and I am done. That is code minimum. If I wanted I could also install any of the other NEC approved ground founds in 250.52. You should also read 250.50. In short all grounding electrodes at a building "SHALL BE BONDED".

But really, that is only the bare minimum when it comes to grounding. Its actually pretty complex. NEC 250 is a large section of the code dedicated to just grounding and bonding. Many people do it wrong and it can be very dangerous. I know audiophile who swear it sound better installed wrong and some day may kill someone, but hey, they think good sound is more important than safety. I tell them to change it but the last bit of ahhh is worth the risk to them. They are confident their transformerless amp will never fail and short to ground so who cares. I will not install a grounding scheme that is not code compliant.

Boy, I got on a rant. I have to go pick up my new amp, it's at the FedEx.
 
Less than 25 ohms. You need a special meter that hooks to the rods and a probe you put in the ground some amount of feet away from the rods. It sends a voltage into the ground and reads the reaistance between the two.
 
Kingrex said:
And one last thing. No one reading this should by any means think reading this is enough information to get into your panel and fiddle around in there. If you screw up, the Arch Flash is close to 35,000*. I hear it said it an instantaneous blast with a BTU output similar to putting a lighter with the flame touching your skin under your hand and letting it burn for 10 seconds. And its the whole of everything in front of it for about a 3 foot diameter. One of the best General Forman I served under was completly disfigured from such a blast. He spend a year in the Harborview Medical burn ward and as far as I know, still goes back quite often to tell new patients its ok, you can keep on living without a face. Hire a professional. I am happy to talk on the phone with anyone you hire and coach them on the specifices of what I like to see done. PM me. They should all be happy to oblige. Some will think you are going overkill. Like, why would you run a wire 2 sized larger than the minimum requirement. It cost more and is harder to work with. Why deox and tape the connections, its a ground, the code does not require it. It will still do the bare minimum in 20 years without bettering the connection. Well, we don't want the bare minimum, we want maximum potential at all times.

You know why a concrete encased electrode and water pipe are such good grounds. The clamps are inside the structure protected from the elements. They don't loose their conductivity so quick. If you have ever seen the connections I run across in the field all the time, its amazing some of the stuff still works. I actually went to my concrete encased electrode a couple months ago and steel wooled the whole connection to get it back to as good as it can be.

But really, that is only the bare minimum when it comes to grounding. Its actually pretty complex. NEC 250 is a large section of the code dedicated to just grounding and bonding. Many people do it wrong and it can be very dangerous. I know audiophile who swear it sound better installed wrong and some day may kill someone, but hey, they think good sound is more important than safety. I tell them to change it but the last bit of ahhh is worth the risk to them. They are confident their transformerless amp will never fail and short to ground so who cares. I will not install a grounding scheme that is not code compliant.

Boy, I got on a rant. I have to go pick up my new amp, it's at the FedEx.
Click to expand...

Spot on Rex
 
Last week I had a ground drilled/hammered in for my audio group. I still have to connect it. The hammered it about 16 to 17 meters deep. The final resistance was about 0.3 Ohm. I still have to connect the ground wire. But before I do that I have to rearrange some of the wiring in my electrical cabinet/switch box.

Hopefully I will have some time in the coming weeks to take care of it. Thinking about replacing the standard switch for a Kemp fuse cartridge.
 
Kingrex said:
Less than 25 ohms. You need a special meter that hooks to the rods and a probe you put in the ground some amount of feet away from the rods. It sends a voltage into the ground and reads the reaistance between the two.
Click to expand...

I really am interested in how the rod is maintained. I could not see that in your last two posts. Is it embedded in concrete? If so, how is that different/better than the usual methods?

So often when I've seen audiophiles do things like this in the past, they've created a hazard. Apparently you have a means that prevents that. So I'd like to know more about it.
 
Mordante said:
Last week I had a ground drilled/hammered in for my audio group. I still have to connect it. The hammered it about 16 to 17 meters deep. The final resistance was about 0.3 Ohm. I still have to connect the ground wire. But before I do that I have to rearrange some of the wiring in my electrical cabinet/switch box.

Hopefully I will have some time in the coming weeks to take care of it. Thinking about replacing the standard switch for a Kemp fuse cartridge.
Click to expand...

Have you have a chance to meas your current AC ground at your meter ? how much difference is there to that ground and this NEW audio ground you are adding.
 
CPP said:
Have you have a chance to meas your current AC ground at your meter ? how much difference is there to that ground and this NEW audio ground you are adding.
Click to expand...

No I haven't measured my current AC. As far as I know my current ground is shared with my neighbor. Maybe even more people. I live in a attached house build in the 70's. Proper grounding wasn't a thing back then. None of my AC outlets were grounded when I bought my house, just the one in my bathroom, kitchen and washing machine. The company that did the work provided me with a thick copper grounding strip. I will use this for my audio group. Connect the ground and the ground from my audio group and nothing else.
 
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