I feel like a new student at The School of Good Grounding and I think I would not graduate. For us freshmen, those with little knowledge and without any scheme at all, would the place to start be with a simple star ground system?
Specifically, in my case, a chassis ground with all components tied to the PowerZone ground lug.
Use high gauge OFC cables to do the connections, of course ( can’t justify silver…$$$).
I’m thinking this should at least get me proper entry to this rabbit hole.
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Go outside, look at the moon.
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I went to Russ Andrews’ site, and I didn’t see any grounding cable per se. Out of patience I ordered a silver grounding wire from Aliexpress because their Black Friday sale.
But I cannot find a ground cable with Ethernet connector anywhere in the world. Is yours a DIY or special order?
I have 2 different grounding wires:
- CAD wires that are intended only for it’s own GC1/GC3
You can order at your choice any plug required:
XLR, RCA, BNC, USB, RJ45, Spade
- Russ Andrews, that I’ve used before with Puritan PSM and GM City and now I’m using with PZ lug
It comes terminated with spade or banana 4 mm but you can use lot of their own adaptors
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This is so interesting because none of these cables showed up on the US site (even when I clicked your bottom link.
But an adaptor is a great idea, I can use a RAC/BNC for my SW-10 switch. I will check later again since I need to get out for my morining run/walk. Thanks!
Sorry, this is the US link
“https://www.russandrews.com/us/system-grounding-us/“
You need to surf into the grounding system web page. My bad, some are adaptors others are cables terminated at your choice.
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They make a Super Router grounding device that is similar to RouteMaster too. I was able to find the grounding cable information. Now I think about it, the grounding boxes I ordered come with their own cables, plus I ordered a silver RCA grounding cable too.
These cables are well made and sound better than the green cables from RM. So, I really need an adapter at this point. In future I may consider replacing all green cables with Russ A. but one step at a time. Thanks for the information.
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The Key thing I learned this week is to separate signal and chassis grounds. I have 8 of Puritan RouteMaster green grounding cables. In the past I connected all components with either spades or RCAs. In other words, I mixed signal and chassis grounds. I heard improvement but it was minor. Luca pointed me in the right direction. I have now:
RM/City connects to all chassis of two LHY switches, M1200s, and PowerZone. PST and MK2 have no grounding since I ran out of spade cables. The only signal ground is MU2 with Xangsane grounding box.
I am waiting for two more boxes so I will try them on switches and MK2. But even with the current unfinished setup I heard a better sound than before.
Another thing, grounding cables make difference, and some are selling a few grands which is kind of crazy.
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Some brands recommend keeping all the ground wires exactly of the same length if connected from various components to the same star point.
Agree with your set up, that mirrors mine.
Chassis star grounding (in my case the central point is the PZ lug).
Signal grounding with one dedicated box (GC1) for each component.
It’s not necessarily the best way to go though. Just my approach after a few years of different experimentations.
What sonic benefit this means? Significant reduction in HF that brings blacker background and less annoying distortion that brings clarity, realism and accuracy. But most of all a general sense of calm and relaxation that brings engagement and pleasure listening to music for hours.
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I’m not stupid, I’m just slow to think. 
So theoretically I could go to a hardware store and get a ground wire?
Or if it costs more, I take advantage of Black Friday at Duelund and order high-quality cables there.
There are silver ribbon cables in a cotton fabric.
Cut all cables the same length. Then one end to the case of each component and the other side of the wires to my power strip ground screw.
I won’t connect the grounding boxes I ordered to the component housings?
The grounding boxes are then individually connected to the signal ground of the individual components?
Or an additional grounding box on the component housing? Only I have heard that only one component should be connected to a grounding box. If I have already connected the components with the wire to my power strip in a star shape, they would all be connected to each other. Then the individual grounding boxes of the components would all be connected to each other through the star-shaped common grounding if I were to connect them to the housing.
The correct thing to do is to connect all components to the power strip in a star shape using wires that are as long as possible. The wire should be the same and have the same length so that the resistance of the wires has the same value and there cannot be different impedances.
That’s how I would understand it with the wire.
Or either ground in a star shape or ground boxes to the respective housing.
Or grounding boxes for the signal ground and the star-shaped grounding for the housings.
I also saw a grounding box on Aliexpress. According to the dealer’s advertising, it should do the same as the active one from Synergistic Research. 
Ich habe das hier gerade auf AliExpress gefunden:
213,62€ | HiFi Audio GND Verstärker Decoder Lautsprecher Power Purifier Elektronische Bodenbox Equalize Energy Field Refer Synergistische Forschung
https://a.aliexpress.com/_EHMh8Wv
Greetings Andreas
Things can be even more complicated, depending on components.
- We have devices that are designed to work keeping separated the Signal from the Earth (chassis) ground. This is generally the case of components that sport a ground lug.
Ground lug = chassis grounding = star grounding set up
If not available a ground lug, you can loosen a screw from the metal case and connect a spade terminated ground wire.
I’m using a star grounding scheme for all components like that.
- Other devices have internally connected Signal and Earth Ground. This is the case of my Innuos Statement for instance.
If so you can’t really keep separated the two grounding schemes.
While MSB DAC PowerBase offers the opportunity to decide at your convenience whether having them connected or not via a little jumper that can be lifted.
CAD GC1 helps me to face different situations, using one unit for each component. Here I work only to drain high frequencies as much as possible from the single component. These kind of devices are not star grounded in my scheme, unlike those above mentioned at point 1. It means that are not connected one to each other through a ground wire from a single ground box or from a single point. I keep them duly separated, so to speak.
In that manner the different components are not sharing Earth ground with each others.
I attack first digital devices, that are the noisiest ones, connecting the CAD single box to unused digital ports like USB, RJ45 or Coax. One CAD box for one single component, even though every CAD GC1 has 2 ports available (2 wires could be used to connect 2 different components at the same time).
Hope that helps.
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For components that do not offer grounding posts, they shouldn’t be connected to the star configuration then. These components are better off using their own grounding boxes since one cannot separate the signal and chassis grounds, right?
CAD GC1 has two ports, but you only use one for each component. Did you hear better sound using only one port? Is there an issue to connect two sources in one box?
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The presence of a ground lug can help identifying Chassis ground vs Signal Ground points, consequently I use those ones in a star grounding scheme.
Where ground lugs are not present, you should ask the manufacturer how that particular component is designed, to identify if internally the Earth Ground and Signal Ground are shared or not.
I usually prefer to avoid a star grounded scheme for these components, so I treat each one with a dedicated GC1. Yes I use only one wire from each GC1 to a single component.
Your Route Master can be used in a star grounded scheme:
. Connecting all the ground lugs ONLY (Earth Ground)
OR
. Connecting all the unused ports ONLY (Signal Ground) if and only you are sure they aren’t designed with internal shared grounding
Synergistic Research, Shunyata and Nordost products are available as similar grounding systems but they also require paying attention in separation between Earth (Chassid) Ground and Signal Ground, if I’m not wrong. I read a lot of their owner manuals but never tried them personally in my system.
Not at all, you can safely try that kind of bi-connection. In my perverse audio mind I simply prefer that each GC1 can work at its full potential, focused only on one single component. The biggest the box, the strongest the HF draining job it can achieve. If you connect 2 components, you are using half a box for each one.
After some experiments I found my way to manage this pretty complex grounding argument. It’s my way, not necessarily the right one or the lonely one possible.
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Thanks! These grounding boxes caught my interest since even a cheap one works on MU2. There will be another rabbit hole waiting for me in future. CAD and Shunyata look interesting.
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If you are interested in this argument I strongly recommend you to read all their papers and manuals, CAD and Puritan included.
You can easily find that some basic concepts are commonly present between them all. This can help to grasp the big picture in grounding, regardless different marketing-price-nomenclature approaches.
Yes some homework is needed but hey… we like this hobby and all its infinite nuances. Time well spent in knowledge (and I’m not retired, my friend).
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Where do you attach ground on the MU2, as there is no chassis point indicated.
Here I will use a grounding box (instead of my RM to the chassis). Because it has a pre input (not output in this case), you can use an RCA connection to it from a grounding box, and CAD maybe one of the best out there,
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The link you provided for CAD is very helpful, I need to go read Puritan’s one more time.
But golf first so it’s bed time for me😁
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As for MU2 I suggest the USB port, digital ports are usually more effective and if directly connected to the board inside even further effective.HF draining is the goal.
If you want a grounding box connected like CAD, I mean.
On the contrary if you are thinking of a star grounding between PZ and MU2, mmm I wouldn’t go this way to be honest.
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I use USB from my MU2 to the CAD.
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