EVS Ground Enhancers

[richidoo]

Bud Purvine's website  http://www.audioprism.com/
He is the inventor and also makes them. His cost more than EVS, but in the link of my previous post he justifies the cost with superior performance. It is a tuned device, not just a loop of wire.

Review
http://www.audaud.com/article.php?ArticleID=7615

[bacobits]

I have a pair coming from EVS.
My whole system is WyWires now and they are superb.
I don't need anything screwing them up.
What is being described is exactly the effect of the WyWires.


D

[BobM]

I ordered mine last week and I'm still waiting for them to show up. From what I understand he is swamped with orders due to the low price and value. Hope I get them by Thanksgiving weekend so I can check them out over the long weekend.

[Bigfish8]

Guys:

I have not taken the plunge on this one although I can admit to being at least interested to read what the mass impression turns out to be.  My system is currently in a state of being redefined (seemingly a normal thing for me) and I would not be able to notice a difference from this tweak if it actually makes a difference.

Please write your reviews after you have time to evaluate the effect of the Ground Enhancers.

Thanks,

Ken

[mdconnelly]

I received 2 pair from Ric on Saturday and installed them on the negative terminals of my speakers as well as at the negative terminals of my amp (speaker outs).

I had read quite a bit of praise (and some healthy skepticism) about these over on AC, but for $25/pair I figured it was definitely worth checking out.  Plugged them in and on initial listening... nothing.  No miracles, no magic bullets, no instant nirvana.    Maybe it was just *me* needing acclimation and I did have a bunch of other stuff I needed to do so I just left the system playing.

I came back a few hours later to sit and listen and, sure enough, there were noticeable improvements.  The sound stage seemed deeper, better defined in space, and bass seemed tighter, more defined.  While far from a radical change, there is an improvement - a more organic sound.  I liked the way Robin (satfrat) described it over on AC - far less listener fatigue as I turned up the volume - in fact, the more I listened, the more I wanted to turn it up.   Unfortunately, this weekend was just way too full of non-audio chores so no real analytical/critical listening occurred.  But hopefully during the next few days I will have the time to do some serious listening.

Are they worth $25/pair? - a no brainer!  A cheap yet effective tweak IMO with no discernible downside.   

[BobM]

As fine as my system now sounds with the EVS enhancers on the speaker terminals, I am not completely satisfied with the somewhat diffuse imaging between the speakers. Yes, things are way wide and deep and quiet, but the center image between the speakers themselves is really not as focused as before.

So I did a little reading at Audiogon and AC and found others have been saying the same thing. Here's what I tried last night and the results I got (remember I bi-wire).

(1) I took off the tweeter GE and left the bass/mid GE in place on the speaker - this was better mage wise, but didn't quite sound continuous top to bottom. Something is off.

(2) I put the removed GE on the amp side, leaving the bass/mid GE on the speaker - same result, not continuous top to bottom.

(3) I removed the speaker side GE on the bass/mid and left the amp side on - this is better. There is a focused center image again. The width and depth may not be quite what they were before but that hint of some kind of phase anomaly is gone.

(4) I put the other GE on the + terminal of the amp, not there is one on both the + and - amp side (remember, my amp is balanced, so YMMV) - it didn't seem to hurt anything from #3, but I can't be certain it helped anything either.

After doing this test the top end was bright and forward, as I experienced whenever moving these things around, but it did tame back down after an hour or so of playing music through them.

Bottom line: I think I'm goign to leave them on the amp side. I think this is better for me than the speaker terminal connections that seem to cause a loss of center fill focus while expanding the soundstage.

Enjoy,
Bob

[tmazz]

Bob,

Before you started moving around the GEs, did you try repositioning the speakers at all? I remember years ago reading some things by Jon Dahlquist  where he was talking about the phase and time alignment theories underlying the development of the open space driver arrays in the DQ-10. According to Jon every drive has a virtual point of sound origination (not unlike the focal point of a lens.The point could be the same as, behind or in front of the physical location of the drive and the exact location of that point was a function of not only the design of the driver, but also the characteristics of the electrical source presented to it. This was one of the reasons that Dahlquist was so against anyone fiddling with the DQ-10 crossovers. He felt that changing out any of the crossover components ran the risk of changing a "focal point" and thereby screwing up the phase and time alignment. Even if the GE devices do not changer the electrical load in the same way perhaps the widening and deepening effect that they do cause changes where to optimum placement of the speakers is within your room. If you like the depth and width you got with the GEs on the speaker terminals maybe you can get the center fill back in focus by moving the speakers a little bit. Get that Sheffield Test Disc out. 

Just a thought..........

[BobM]

Not looking to do all that work Tom, and potentially losing that 1/4" location and focus point that I so painstakingly found after mucho trial and error experimentation.

But thanks for the thought 

[tmazz]

Not looking to do all that work Tom, and potentially losing that 1/4" location and focus point that I so painstakingly found after mucho trial and error experimentation.

But thanks for the thought 

I know what you mean. I ordered a pair of GEs for myself and the thought of having to move the speakers sends a chill down my spine (remember, they weigh 175 lbs each and are spiked through the carpet, so they have to be lifted straight up before they can go in any other direction. )

But if that 1/4" location shifts by 1/8".......... 

The things we do when Nervosa takes hold....... 

[shep]

Anyone have anything more to say about these???

[BobM]

Well, I do like them better on my amp. Since I bougt 2 pair I have one on each of the + and - terminals. Things are much more focused now than on the speakers, where they got a bit phasey. Apparently people who are running balanced amps like mine have reported something similar to what I found and find improvement on the amp side rather than the speaker side.

Now I'm off playing with crystals. Lots of trial and error here but I think I've found the right placement of them. They definitely don't work well everywhere, but where they do work they bring a nice clarity to the picture. Sometimes there's clarity, but at the expense of lesser dynamics or a rolled off top end. Judicious and appropriate use is called for, and that takes patience and a lot of trial and error.

Now I think I am going to have to pull all of this stuff out sometime soon and see if the overall combined effect is a positive gain, just a different sound, or if I lost something with all these tweaks that I am not fully aware of right now. Oh fun!

[richidoo]

What do you mean by crystals?

[BobM]

Here's a thread over at Audio Asylum that should start you down the crystal-crack road.

http://db.audioasylum.com/mhtml/m.html?forum=tweaks&n=172931&highlight=crystal&search_url=%2Fdefault.mpl%3Fsearchtext%3Dvitamin%26b%3DAND%26topic%3D%26topics_only%3DN%26author%3D%26date1%3D%26date2%3Dmike%2Bsamra%26slowmessage%3D%26sort%3Dscore%26sortOrder%3DDESC%26forum%3DALL

[richidoo]

No way! No Alan Maher crack for me. Thanks anyway. 

[evan1]

No way! No Alan Maher crack for me. Thanks anyway. 

He's into it all. I did see on his Facebook page he is also remastering discs