ADL’s Battery Ground Tweak

This a tweak developed and invented by ADL

Additional tweak:

BATTERY GROUND TWEAK

Capacitance will vary from 50,000 uF to 1000,000 uf for digital video BGT’S. Bypass caps will also change, small bypasses are needed for digital video and larger for analog pplications

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It is an outgrowth of a similar idea by Bud Purvine, who posted it on the internet (DIY Audio). In Bud’s idea, he took a simple 6 inch loop of wire, preferably litz construction ( finely individually insulated strands), soldered the ends together and attached it to the component ground system. It noticeably improves the bass and internal detail.

That it makes any change at all is quite astounding, as electrically, the cable is doing absolutely nothing, just sitting there. But a pleasant change is indeed heard. Bud noticed that the greater the surface area of the wire the greater the effect (I tried using copper ribbon foil and that worked quite nicely, too), hence his recommendation to use litz wire.

He speculated further that he believes the wire stored electrons, creating a sort of “pool” which was readily available for the workings of the component’s circuit. Remember now, that electrons are negatively charged, and thus the electromotive force comes primarily from the ground or negative terminals.

That theoretical underpinning gave us the inspiration to use a battery, with just the negative hooked up, and then we began experimentation. Our friend Janos was instrumental in this process ( and his wife Nellie !), as I would barge into their home to conduct many tedious and very repetitious experiments (this was while the store was still closed). Not only was it time consuming, but then Nellie would have to listen to the same passage of music over and over and over and over again…..

We used various batteries at various voltages, but the higher the voltage, the more pronounced the highs became. With two 9 v batteries in series to provide 18 volts, the high became so pronounced that it was extremely fatiguing.

We then added a a large capacitor, just something we had lying around, and that greatly changed the effect upon the sound. The capacitor added tremendous bass and dynamics. Just like a power supply, however, we have to add a bypass cap in order to level off the upper frequencies. You can see this when using the tweak for  video use as an increase in brightness.

Adding this tweak to a flat screen set also significantly improved the picture quality. In fact, one early user reported that the picture on his Sony XBR (older CRT tube set) became so much better he lost the desire to purchase the latest high def flat screen sets. On a TV set, color saturation improves, sharpness increases, motion artifacts are reduced, and fine detail becomes more clearly visible. All these video aspects have their counterpart in audio.

We have noticed that the effect is more prominent with source components: Phono sections, preamps, CD/DVD players and such, including cable boxes. On a DVD player, color saturation increases, and black levels increase, making for a much more pleasant picture viewing. While the picture improves, the sound  quality also increases. There is more micro dynamics, and better resolution, mirroring the effect on the video. On well filmed movies, such as Avatar, the effect is clearly visible as the animation and computer graphics employed have a tremendous depth of field. Sometimes you get caught up more with what’s happening in the background than in the foreground.

The beauty of the tweak is that we construct it so that you can plug it into any unused plug on the back of your component. It really doesn’t matter which one, but you will both hear, and, in the case of a TV set, see the difference. We can demo the tweak in our store as virtually every component uses it.

We have now also recently developed a battery ground tweak more specifically aimed at video and digital. This employs a combination of a special solder, silver wire, and different bypass capacitors. While usable for audio also, it adds significant brightness and sharpness for video. It is bit bright for audio use but digital and video signals employ much higher operating frequencies. Detail increases significantly, and there is much more 3D effect. In addition, fine details become more visible: skin tones, background details are all enhanced significantly.

For audio, there may be a bit too much upper frequency emphasis hence our recommendation for a video/digital component BGT whose working frequencies lie far above the audio bandwidth. The video tweak requires a bit more parts so adds to the overall cost.

We have also upgraded the battery holders and will shortly add a case to avoid possible shorting of the battery and caps. As an aside, it should be noted that the tweak takes some break in time, probably to charge up the capacitors. It takes as long about two hours to get the full effect and about two days to realize the full effect as the caps charge and discharge.

The one component the battery tweak does not work well with is with balanced components. Our guess is that while it does provide extra electrons, in a truly balanced component, the negative signal path has its own B- power supply and thus the tweak becomes superfluous.

The tweak starts at  $70, a bit more for the extra capacitor  versions.  Original BGTs used only 15,000 uF in capacitance. We are now making 40,000 uF of capacitance standard and upping the values to 100,000 uF for the flat screen versions. That coupled with the silver wire used ( we use a strand of 6N silver) will drive the prices up to $100.

SOME FURTHER THOUGHTS

The battery tweak seems to work better closer to the source. Starting from the tail end of the audio chain, while giving some improvement, is not as dramatic as installing on the source components. In our video system, installation on the DVD player gives the most dramatic improvement. Similarly, installing it on a cable box is also very beneficial. Once the source components are taken care of, then the benefits on the tail end become much more apparent.

While we had been experimenting with multiple numbers of batteries, we notice that more microfarads of capacitance is of greater import. Higher voltages add more top end, but that very often is not so desirable. On our video system we are employing more than 100,000 uF’s! The larger numbers of capacitance greatly aids the black levels, and seems to stabilize the colors ( better saturation with less motion artifacts).

That being said, the tweak reacts very similarly to power supply mods. Sometimes too much capacitance will slow the signal down. It then becomes essential to use a film type bypass capacitor in order to restore the “speed”.

Incidentally the battery life should be the equivalent of the shelf life of the battery: up to four or five years. It ‘s a good idea to use a Sharpie to inscribe the battery installation date. Carbon types have the shortest life. The standard alkaline (like Duracell) will last quite long.

This is a photo of  headphone adapter we can make for dedicated headphone users. We can supply a variety of ends to suit most purposes from a nanopod to a CD discman. In almost every case the battery ground adapter adds  detail and bass extension. It can make many headphones sound very high end, even those little earbuds. This is a first generation experimental BGT. Current models have the internals packed into a plastic case as photo below.

Three of the many versions of BGT that ADL can fabricate. We can make it for 3.5 mini jacks for use with MP-3 players and iPads. We will soon have version built into USB cables. We also have a special video version.

FURTHER BGT DEVELOPMENTS

We do continuous work on the BGT, refining it and attempting to increase its performance level. Currently we are experimenting with an application with USB cables and it shows promise, but more on that later.

We now offer the BGT as an analog model and a digital/video model. The analog model is basically the same model we have been building for some time now. The Digital/video employs the use of silver wire which seems to be crucial for superior video presentation and for the digital interfaces. Video needs even more capacitance as the demands are far greater. Also the bypass caps used for  the digital/video applications need to be tuned much higher in frequency in order to secure a higher performance. This is not surprising as the digital/video apps require operation at much higher frequencies.

This, of course, drives the cost of the BGT’s higher.

We have further refined the BGT for use with single ended amps. Using a larger bypass cap and some larger gauge speaker wire certainly adds more top end for a very pleasaant presentation.