Chord GroundARAY - brilliant or bollocks?

Dave, similar thoughts re why whatever effects the GroundARAY are compensating for have not been designed out have struck me. Both Naim and Linn, and others of course, have excellent designers and it does at first glance seem odd that Chord have come up with something that ‘improves’ Naim and Linn equipment. Maybe the impact is so marginal that it’s just not possible - perhaps in the same way that immunity to system supports cannot, or has not, been designed out.

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I take it these simply plug in and out? I’m tempted to try and get a trial unit and ask my lad to randomly plug in and out over the course of a few evenings so I’m effectively blind testing. I’m not questioning those who’ve heard a difference on open testing, I just don’t entirely trust my own ears and brain to stay impartial and I think it’ll be more fun this way.

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Yes just make sure you plug the 5 Pin into mapped socket, I used Tuner on my 252

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What do you mean by “mapped” socket?

ensure the non used DIN socket is asigned in 252 to DIN not RCA

I don’t use RCA all DIN

I’m not following that, but will come back to it if I try one.

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I love the simplicity and clarity of these Naim manuals. No wonder they stoppped making them.

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Well, I have to agree that after spending 14K on a pre I don’t expect that it has grounding issues that must be solved by a 3rd party plug. If the plug works, Naim could have thrown one in (for 200 more maybe).

And yes, the same would apply to other manufacturers, but I don’t care if Linn stuff has the same issues, being a Naim owner on the Naim forum.

In any case, obviously what litemotiv wrote was hypothetical and a rhetorical device. And it’s not at all the same logic as comparing 552 to Statement. You have somewhat of an idea why the Statement costs more, and it’s not illogical that it would sound better.

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Ok, so your chosen direction for this thread is to blame Naim, is that correct?

Please read again. I have not blamed Naim one bit in this thread and, if you read my other posts on the forum, I love my Naim and am spending a lot of time helping other Naim users, because of love of the brand.

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Yes, but have you read some of the PR spin Naim put out as well. It’s corporate BS, nothing new here.

Some of it, yes, but there are also white papers that do go into more depth. With the more magical stuff, like cable shaking, I prefer Naim’s typical approach of saying that they don’t know the technical reason but it happens to work, over inventing ones that just make no sense, like jitter in a TCP network.

As for the Chord stuff I own, I wanted to leave no stone unturned during my recent system building, and was lucky for getting the Sarum T’s for 50% off, so am trying these as well. The EE’s price was insignificant in the grand scheme. However, I have been enjoying the system so much that I haven’t yet taken the time to really compare. When I briefly switched the NDX2 interconnect back to the lavender, I heard no night-and-day differences, if any. Time will tell, I am going to get my new speakers soon-ish, and at some point will muster the energy to try. (Not easy to get to the cables in my system)

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Oh god, not the ‘laws of physics’ argument now? Next it will be the ‘as an electrical engineer’ argument

But the same could be said for the 8Switch that you now use. Does it’s impact mean that your streamer is poorly designed?

I’m really interested and excited by the fact that Chord are trying to move sound quality forward using an approach that the OEMs apparently haven’t addressed as yet. That’s hats off to Chord, not a kick in the shins to Naim/Linn/insert manufacturer of choice.

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I’m not sure but didn’t an audio accessory company get in trouble with the ASA over ad claims, can’t remember who it was but some companies have form in this area, beware marketing hype, try for yourself (if you can afford it of course).

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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