Chord GroundARAY - brilliant or bollocks?

Naim in 2015

Only the ground is connected to the groundARAY, I doubt unassigned sockets will have the ground plane disconnected from the socket. But, it’s easy to check with a multimeter.

An entirely reasonable approach.

As per my initial “review” I found no difference whatsoever at first because I had all inputs (bar those I needed) disabled. I used the Naim app to open them up.

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Do you know this to be a fact?

Ofcourse Naim knows about radio noise, in any shape or form, and how it influences their equipment and to which degree. This is not some scientific breakthrough from Chord that totally surprises Naim and other manufacturers. It it were it would surely be ‘patent pending’, which it isn’t.

The same type of devices from Acoustic Revive have been around since at least 2008. This is not a new type of product.

Also ferrites are the standard approach of preventing and reducing HF radio noise inside electronic equipment, this has also been discussed years ago on these forums:

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Sorry. I missed that one. :see_no_evil:

I don’t disagree. It would seem impossible to design every external influence out, while at the same time maximising sound quality and keeping within budget.

I think with a lot of these quite expensive add-ons that they can initially be found as an improvement yet quickly become the norm, and then if removed they are are not missed. I replaced £300+ ethernet cables with el cheapo BJC and thought they were better, or at least no worse, and swapped £3,500 of mains leads and block for a £170 Hydra and didn’t miss it for a second. I thought the EE switch improved things but it’s very much at the margins. Would I miss it if I sold it? Probably not.

I’d never say that these ARAYs cannot work or do not work - if people like what they do and think them worth the while then that’s great, it keeps them happy and keeps Chord in business. These products are very much at the lunatic fringe of hifi, where people are willing to spend large amounts of money for very small improvements. If all the tweaks were removed, would their enjoyment of music be decreased? Has the obsessive quest of the very best distracted them from the simple joy of music? Maybe, maybe not. Who knows?

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That’s a circular argument.

A tweak could be defined as ‘something that initially makes the system sound a bit better, but which you wouldn’t miss if you took it out’.

As opposed to an upgrade, which you would always miss and crave for if you lost it.

Now this raises an interesting point - does the act of disabling vs enabling an input with the array left in place show a difference? Or do you notice the difference when plugging/unplugging it to an enabled input?

It could be that Naim allowing inputs to be disabled has an effect in its own right and hence why the feature exists in the first place

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Yes that instruction is insane. I can only imagine how it would read for someone with difficulties regarding language or for instance Neuropsychiatric disabilities such as ADHD.

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Good point. At first I opened them all up, tried the Aray thingy in one of them, and it worked. I then closed all the inputs that weren’t needed with no discernible difference. So the Aray worked, I’ve subsequently removed it to the sound’s detriment, and it went straight back in to stay.

Although having said that if I get my gullible paws on the RJ version I’ll see if both work to improve the sound.

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Some folk are comfortable with their own faculties to decide for themselves if something is brilliant or bollocks.
Would be interesting how many would sign up in an orderly queue to just order some if Naim had released these devices.
Comforted by the thought of endorsement by investment.

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Correct - Chord have been in trouble with the ASA in the past for making unsubstantiated claims. They had to amend their advertising blurb as a result. Annoyingly I can’t find this on the ASA database, but it certainly used to be there as I remember reading it.

Earlier in this thread :wink:

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A quick Google will find it for you. But Chord are not the only folks to have fallen foul of the ASA cough expensive mains cables cough. Can also be found by Googling!

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Following that sort of reasoning amplifiers sound the same. If you think your 552 is better than the NAD 7020 I use at the moment, you are simply justifying the enormous amount of money you have spent :grinning:

Damn right! :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

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Some people just know that the earth is flat. At some point in the future the penny may drop for the rest of us…

Peter

Off the edge probably