Grounding of K50?

[MarkCole]

The Antipodes unit is electrically earthed via the power lead.
This is likely to create an earth loop, not advisable, makes sense on an un-earthed laptop for example, not on a correctly earth-managed music server.

[desbiss]

Hi Mark, the QKORE ‘grounding’ device I have in use is in reference to a signal grounding scenario as opposed to an earth ground. The below prior post referenced the concept well. The QKore ground device doesn’t connect to the AC circuit at all. It keeps the ground plane floating.

@kennyb123

Exactly right. But… there are signal grounding devices that avoid this problem by not themselves connecting to the earth ground. They aim to remove noise that gets dumped on the ground plane so they aren’t really providing a separate ground. Digital gear could potentially benefit from these given all the noise these components generate internally.

So I think signal grounding is worth trying as long as it’s kept separate from the earth and chassis grounds.

[Anthony1]

Although non Antipodes, I’ve compared the effect of chassis ground (certainly not mains) at the specified screw terminal with Nordost earth cables with connectors of: Spade, RJ45, XLR at the other end of equipment.
The two devices i compared were Nordost QKORE 3 and Shunyata Everest 8000 (a specialist mains conditioner with 4 chassis earth connection options). And to my surprise I prefer the QKore for this chassis micro V earth function.
Improved stage depth, decay & synergy between components are the virtues I noticed.
And I tried before I bought, and quickly concluded I should of tried a specialist chassis ground device years earlier!

Anthony

[desbiss]

I’ve not tried the Shunyata products, but with the Nordost QKORE I was similarly impressed with very little audition time in my setup. I’m surprised it’s taken till recent for signal grounding to be something the industry has picked up on. It’s easily akin to component level upgrades for each device you connect, in my experience at least.

That said, I tested on my EX using a USB QKORE ground wire instead of the RCA QKORE ground wire I had in place.

It’s clear the RCA ground on the EX was not quite cohesive with the rest of the QKORE grounding I have employed, and it was a bottleneck. Truly next level with the USB ground demo cable presently in place on the 5V OFF USB Audio Out on the EX.