The following album (Sines) is pretty amazing too. You can get them both on Bandcamp. If you get a chance to see them live, it’s a really good experience (they were touring recently for the 10th anniversary of Solace).
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Just a moderators note here: please could we try to avoid this thread turning into another proxy debate over the efficacy or not of blind testing.
Whether you’re sceptical about these things, or you believe they’re brilliant just from the blurb, then I would urge you to take a listen, and then make your own judgment. You can then decide whether they’re worth it for you.
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Yes, just listening to Camel’s Rajaz for the first time on the 252 - the guitar is sublime. I remember someone mentioning this as a reference albumn. It’s 20 years old, but superb quality - maybe analogue recording I guess?
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My favourite Camel album.
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Any idea where I can find it? After a search of both Qobuz and Tidal it appears that their catalogue doesn’t extend past the late 70s.
Probably the best way to test the Chord GroundARAY is to trial for 30 days then remove, if you feel the music has turned for the worse “Brilliant” if not “Bollocks”
Exactly.
Thanks JJL, this was indeed more or less my point. Some products make more outrageous claims than others, or have marketing descriptions that are more spurious and therefore deserve more scrutiny.
I personally don’t subscribe to the general idea on these forums that subjective evaluation is the only thing that matters in audio, knowing how easily our ears and brains can be fooled. How we feel is important but there is also something like objective fact, and both can exist side by side. Since many people here are strongly on the subjective side, i tend to seek the other side more to offer some balance to the discussion.
It saddens me to see that on all other forums there are threads about this product and everyone is laughing their asses off because it’s so obviously a scam, especially at the price point and considering the comically bad marketing texts from Chord:
Each GroundARAY cylinder is filled with a carefully chosen material to deaden noise.
Translation: it’s filled with sand
I am regularly the black sheep in these kinds of threads on the Naim forums and that’s okay because i know what i get myself into. But i hope that people realise that the things i write are considered non-controversial outside of these forums, even though they may appear ‘radical’ here. It is the Naim forums that are quite far removed from the mainstream when it comes to topics like these.
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Sorry I’ve not read every post – has someone opened one up and posted pics of what’s inside?
Piezo-electric powder according to another forum ….
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Wouldn’t you want the opposite of that effect? They should just call it magic dust and have done
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454 posts. How many on here have actually evaluated this gadget, bound and gagged or otherwise? I know @Antz has sampled with his Verve Clicquot 
anyone else?
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There was one other person early in the thread who tried one - and reported a positive difference. @Nick.Lees IIRC. I don’t recall anyone reporting trying and not hearing a difference.
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So it is crystals of quartz or other substance that creates an electric charge when they undergo mechanical stress (the basis of a crystal phono cartridge or microphone). Quartz sand perhaps? In a rigid metal tube to ensure no change in mechanical stress, other than through thermal contraction/expansion. Piezo also works the other way, put an electric charge across it and it will induce movement (the basis of a crystal earpiece or piezo tweeter). However if all the crystals are randomly orientated any created charge or movement might be expected to cancel out.
‘Quartz sand’ - isn’t that……sand?
It’s a depressing thing that there are a substantial number of “contributors“ who come flocking to these threads, who haven’t listened, and what’s more have no intention to listen. It’s classic thread cr@pping.
All in the name of science.
And yes it did a blind test with my wife, doing ABBA, she had no doubts as to what she preferred each time. I ask myself these days whether it worth the trouble to post listening tests.
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[quote=“Suedkiez, post:440, topic:17906”]
thing
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Good review, I ignored all the naysayers and will add this onto a future trial…
Will we see an updated LP12 profile from your demo?
There is often quartz in sand, but purely quartz sand is uncommon, so for this purpose a manufacturer would need to seek it out or manufacture it. There are of course other piezoelectric materials, from other crystals (e.g Rochelle salt) and a number of ceramic materials (e.g. aluminium nitride), so it may not be any variety of sand as we know it. Of much greater significance are the questions Why powdered piezo material? What could such a filling do to have the effect of reducing noise in a system when connected to a spare socket?
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That conjures up interesting possibilities…
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Hi Nick. Did you try Dancing Queen?!
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