Ray Of Sunshine

Time stands still. They told us to stay home until 14th Apr or locked behind bars. I'm socially responsible, doing my part of social distancing. Another two weeks to go and hopefully, it will not be further extended. I started to miss Klang Bak Kut Teh. Yes, it has got to be the authentic Klang Bak Kut Teh, not anywhere else. They just don't taste right, isn't sound share the similarity? With so much to spare, I'm bored to hell. From daybreak, I watch the time goes by. Lunch follows and a lazy afternoon nap, dinner, music time and hitting the sack, day in day out. Naturally, my mind can't turn away from "What can I do to make my sound better?". Good sound is my core value. Coronavirus and audio virus makes double jeopardy, I need masks and audio ideas.

My wife works from home since the order, she turns the house into a war zone. Busy phone calls and paper rush, I think twice before I turn up the volume of my system. Stress arises when you don't get what you wanted to do. To confront head-on, it's down to things going whose way, one party will have to give in. Men always give in, don't they? That's why liquor and friends are men's best friend, two glasses down the throat and with companies, tension gone just like that. How I wish life back to normal.

So, I learned that some have got good results on shielding fabric. I responded, why not since it's not expensive. Order placed a few days into the "Stay at Home" order, even by air freight, the shipping time took two week time. Though it was a long wait, I'm not a patient man. Anyhow, I'm glad to receive my parcel given a difficult time like this, these courier guys risk their health doing their job. Salute.

My shielding fabric is feathery light in the form of thin lamination of nickel and copper on PET sheet. PET is the kind of plastic making 1.5-litre soda drink bottles. Technically speaking, it's a piece of engineering plastic sheet. It was developed for military use to fend off high-frequency interferences. Long before that, I knew the benefits of shielding. I have had wrapped copper foil on the power cord IEC male and female connector plugs, it provides a slightly quiet background. Nothing really to shout about. Anyway, most power cords are shielded. On certain occasions, braided interconnect without shielding, for example, noise self-cancelling without shielding sounds more open. There's more than one way to skin a cat.

To test what shielding fabric claims, I made calls to my handphone wrapped with shielding fabric, no call picked up, it worked. To hit the nail on its head, I had my eye on Power Bank, two units in my listening room. Judging by its weight, close to 40kg apiece, my educated guess is a 2kVA transformer inside. No rocket science, big transformers generate an enormous amount of radiofrequency, along with external telecommunication radio frequency, high-speed internet network, lightings and electronic devices, these are harmful to sound. The highspeed 5G network will be even severe, the radiowaves are even more rampant.

Now, taking the measurements and scissor works. Correct me if I'm wrong, radiofrequency radiates in all directions. No concrete walls can hold them back but distance and shielding. Covering all sides is ideal, I could manage only 5 sides. One thing is clear, radiofrequency doesn't discriminate. Precut the fabric to Frank Power Bank, no ventilation holes are closed, overheating is absolutely not what I have in mind.

Everything was nice and easy when no timeline, I've had a productive afternoon. A few hours system warm-up, anticipation builds up for the eventual evening to see if my efforts go to waste. Not one layer of shielding but two, I've had the respective power bank covered and subsequently the other power supply, I take no chances. One after one, CD player, buffer and lastly amplifier in a sequence is treated with shielding.

Listened to the same CD left in the tray yesterday, at the same volume, all variables were the same except the shielding. New against fresh yesterday impression, Wow! Wow! Wow! I was dumbfounded, my mind was blank. Thoughtless.

Slide the curtain and allow the morning sun to burst through the window, you see boundless dust particles in abundance doing the sundance. Get an air purifier, breathe in better air, you feel good. Similarly, the shielding fabric accords peaceful sound, free of electrical buzzes. An eerie moment that had me stunned. Words are inadequate, I have to say it takes a personal experience to apprehend. Flashed back to my friend's first-ever philharmonic attendance, he stole the line that evening with "The sound is free of electrical-ness". I wish to tell him I have got a similar state of serenity amidst the bustling city.

Now in the interest of many, what does free of electrical buzzes brings to the table? Lower noise floor, giving a boost in transparency department. The images all leapt forward. The sound has got less fuzzy. The clean top end nursed the woolliness, the edginess, nervousness, dry, brittle and fray that often occur towards the end of the note. I'm not sure if analogue-ness can be applied here, but one thing for sure, it has gotten less digital. No more frizzy hairs. So, guys who stay near to high tension cables will expose themselves to higher rate radiofrequency, your health and sound are under threat.

Snare drums, hit hat, sax and any other instruments with ascending frequency overtones predominantly, satisfying. Well extended. You know what, we're dealing with high-frequency noise, a form of harmonic distortions. The false bloom is one of the byproducts of high-frequency noise that has misled us as warmth. With high-frequency noise out of the way, the note is compact and densified that ushers articulate. It's not lean.

Ground box, ground cable and the shielding fabric, they contribute from their own perspectives, I couldn't have without them. I'm a ray of sunshine. The shielding fabric is the least expensive of the three is worth trying. Heartily recommended.

Ground box

Ground boxes are not made the same, full stop. You can imagine these guys' tireless trial and error to get the product right. The quantity, the composition, the size and type of minerals, precisely, these are the formula. Many argue its effectiveness, may your argument stays in your head, everything will be answered if you just try one in your system. Listening is believing. Let the sound convince you. And I'm not going to lie that ground box is essential, for me of course, especially if you can't afford power conditioners.

We expect a cleaner background with ground boxes, busting electrical buzzing. Naturally, improved articulation is at sight. I never expect it as a tone control. Oh! Before I forgot, always buy the biggest ground box, the cost is well justified. This conclusion is drawn after repetitive with and without the ground box. I like what it does to the sound. Until I came across a guy in a forum, his scrupulous works on his ground box caught me attention. Well, what's the heck! I thought I give it a try since it's not expensive. There I was, I didn't wait long to have my hand on it. 4 days later the ground box is at my door, the Chinese efficiency by any standard is admirable. The world has every reason to worry about China's productivity, at the height of capitalism. Efficient use of resources.

A new ground box in hand, without any delay, I replaced the old ground box right at the same spot for a direct comparison. Holy Mackerel! I can't believe what I've heard. So good that my impetuousness urged me to get another one, quick-quick! Even at the height of the coronavirus pandemic in China, the city was in lockdown, people weren't allowed to work, the supply chain was broken, in spite all the hurdles, he shipped his last unit out to me. Let no one escape, I got ground boxes to serve each of them. Perfect.

If you're still reading up to now, you will know that I like my new ground box by a wide margin. Warmth, I didn't see it coming. Where the hell it comes from? Entreq explains that our grounding couldn't get rid of home appliances' high-frequency noise and stay voltages. Our grounding is overloaded or not constructed to handle these millivolt currents of very high frequencies effectively. Instead, they flow around in our system. These stay voltages often generate very large magnetic fields that pollute the sound.

Even at the distribution box, the best result comes from the front end. I arrived at an optimal result with a respective new ground box at cd player and buffer, the old one to the amp. Believe me, I've tried them at all different places. Pinch me if I feel pain, I'm not in a delusion. The first impression of intuition never goes wrong. The mids sounded so good. Voices have a human quality, emotive, reaching deeper into the heart. While I don't deny that it's a colouration, the voices have that a little more "tangibility", more presence. For all you know, I have no penchant for hi-fi-ish sound, cold, super-extended and rather emotionless, I want a world-class mid. The old ground box never gives me that kind of intimacy but accentuates the highs and extension.

To begin with, my mids isn't solid-state papery lean. I got small tubes in the audio chain. Tubes are a lovely colouration as opposed to stone-cold solid-state, hands down. Three ground boxes, they got my background darker. But the diminishing return is nonetheless evidenced with the following addition, I'm afraid.

Why new ground box is superior? It must be the single run cable for grounding, minimum connectors. It's my belief that the more connectors along in the chain, the greater sonic degradation regardless of the quality of connectors. Connectors are bad but we can not do without them. The signal passes through from the connectors to the solder that holds the cable, to the solder and of course, the connector again at the other end. Signal contaminations. That's why I prefer not to have my amp modified to IEC socket to allows third party power cord. In addition, my speakers are highly efficient. My primary concern is to preserve signal integrity. As you can see, my belief goes against the mainstream, the latter triumphs in terms of power and scale for their moderate speaker efficiency, their systems benefit from power. Given many stages of amplification, it works for them. Many have reported silver grounding cables better either copper or silver coated cables, I couldn't confirm this. Sorry.

Ground box is a low cost and high impact solution, heartily recommended. Doing away electrical buzz is a big deal, you will love it.