Editors’ Choice: Best Grounding Devices

Shunyata’s Altaira grounding system is composed of one or more passive “hubs,” which you connect to the ground terminals of your components via specially made ground cables. The Altaira ground cables can be fitted with interchangeable terminations to fit any system and to adapt to component upgrades. It turns out that evacuating noise from the components’ grounds has profound effects on sound quality, and not just in areas that you would suspect—blacker backgrounds and greater resolution of low-level detail. Rather, the Altaira system’s benefits were manifold: increased timbral liquidity, more body and texture to images, greater clarity of instrumental lines, and a more relaxed, refined, and realistic presentation overall. 2022 Product of the Year Award winner. RH, 334

The QKore grounding system truly demonstrates that silence is golden. It represents an ingenious attempt to combat the electronic nasties that conspire to corrupt the sound of electronic musical reproduction. Unlike many products that purport to produce a purer sound, the QKore is a non-invasive grounding device that you plug into an unused input on a stereo component; it produces no extra-musical artifacts of its own. What it does is create a much blacker background from which the subtlest of details emerge with elegance and refinement. Every part of the sonic spectrum will also sound fuller and more transparent. For any high-end enthusiast seeking to improve his system, this is an essential component. JHb, 283