Blackground is an innovative new technology developed by LessLoss which comes in simple modular form. One such device connects any tapped AC or DC voltage to ground. This special connection elevates sonic performance to unprecedented levels. Any signal can be used, including line level signals, speaker signals with high current, or even power voltages. No current flows through between the Blackground's two contact terminals. For size information, click on the photo gallery thumbnails above. For usage instructions, see the following descriptions.

If you want a ready-made, plug-and-play solution for power, click here to go to the BlackGround 10x Power Base page.

Blackground is an innovative new technology developed by LessLoss which comes in simple modular form. One such device connects any tapped AC or DC voltage to ground. This special connection elevates sonic performance to unprecedented levels. Any signal can be used, including line level signals, speaker signals with high current, or even power voltages. No current flows through between the Blackground's two contact terminals. For size information, click on the photo gallery thumbnails above. For usage instructions, see the following descriptions.
Hi everyone. I'm a longtime user of LessLoss products. So this time, after buying 5 of the Blackbodies V.2, I decided at Louis's suggestion, to purchase 5 Blackgrounds to properly ground them. I had already heard some subtle improvements with the V.2s alone, but because of past success with other Lessloss products, I bought 5 Blackgrounds. After getting some directions from Louis, I then played my system ..... What an improvement! More "Living Presence", more oomph to the sounds, like it was being pushed out of the speakers more powerfully. Just more power to the music. The scientific explanation for this can be found on the LessLoss website. I recommend reading it. I'm very happy and plan to buy more Blackgrounds in future!
Yesterday my first Blackground order has been delivered. And of course I could not resist to prepare the setup connecting the Blackgrounds to the speaker terminals of my mono amps. The first listening experience was very promising* ... and that with the smallest solution possible 😀 Instantaneously the idea arose to divert 2 additional Blackground 10x Power Base for this use case. But then I remembered that you wrote somewhere that you plan to launch another product (similar to the 10x Power Base) for that. Best regards, Jörg * I didn't use my standard "test" LPs (like Sound of Jazz from Analog Productions) but a few that I hadn't listened to for a longer time and it was a gorgeous sound experience.
I received my 5 BlackGrounds today and hurried to build 4 of them into my homemade power distributor. It looks a lot more pretty with the lid on 😊 – but it works!   Immediate and huge improvement in detail, resolution, ambience and dynamics. Simply much more music! I have recently invested in many upgrades for my music system and none of them made this huge an improvement and those were all much more expensive. Very excited. Just tonight it has developed much further compared to when I first wrote. Great product!   Best regards Poul
To be truthful, I was very sceptical when I first heard about this new 'device' a while back. But then I have been sceptical of everything I ever got from LessLoss - before I put it into my system. After - well, I have yet to experience an item from LessLoss that does not make a positive difference in my system! Even so, the BlackGround seemed somewhat more mystical than the cables, Firewalls and Bindbreakers I have already deployed in my system, but after an exploratory email correspondence with Louis Motek, I decided to get a few of these new things (perhaps I also felt a bit of an obligation after having godfathered the name for them!). I received the new devices the other day and wired a couple of them up to work on the AC for my system. Yesterday, I got a chance to try the BlackGrounds out - still not daring to expect much. That was quite a WOW experience! These are my initial impressions from my brief listening session yesterday with one BlackGround on Line and another on Neutral on the AC: - System seemed to play louder! (no settings whatsoever were changed in the system) - Reverb improved, both room wise and on instruments/voices - Room description/ambience improved - Layering and detailing improved Even though these were not night and day changes, they were easily discernable and heightened the general performance of my system. Once again, Louis put all my doubts to shame - phenomenal!
Added 8 pairs to mains. What shall I say… this is a psychedelic experience of dramatic magnitude. From what you wrote about it, I expected a lot, but what it does is not what I expected.  The incredible thing about its effect is that it does exactly what my comdev and the newest gen. resonators we use do, but even stronger, of course. It’s that energy shift away from the glare and garbage especially in the top end into the organic, colorful, beautiful - the brown, red, orange and golden colors. That’s what I so love. Plus, it does something on the reach-out and communication level which is magic. Count me in to get many more of them. This has to go in products.
I have been involved in the wonderful hobby of High End HiFi for decades gradually improving my stereo as my knowledge, funds and regards for my family allowed. It has given me countless hours of joy and, in the beginning, countless hours of frustration as well. One of the quirks of this hobby is the vast number of variables involved. That is probably the reason one still cannot just order “The Best Stereo”, pay the bill and live happily ever after. It is still very much an art to not just chose the right components but also be able to make them play together and not against each other. One thing I have learned during my long journey travelling the “Stereo Jungle” is, very few people master this art while vast quantities of animals of prey seem to thrive in sewing confusion dressed up as absolute knowledge, amateurs as well as professionals. Little wonder that most of us have been through periods of repeatedly swapping out components of our stereo in an everlasting search for the holy grail. Sadly, frustration and confusion often follow the initial burst of joy over a new component and the search starts over again. But there is a solution to this I found out. My journey took a completely new direction as I, by chance, stumbled upon LessLoss, a company driven by a rare combination of deep insight and experience in both the technical the performing and the recording side of music, look for the credentials on the homepage. Add to that the real time feedback from a worldwide community of satisfied customers. A company that takes pride in always striving for the best, very often breaking new grounds in a spirit where Quality always beats Quantity and getting to the soul of music seems to be the top goal. Fighting noise seems to be the dominant road for LessLoss, nothing our ears perceive as noise but the cleaning up of all kinds of ultrahigh frequency noise, a lot of which was not present a few decades ago. Noise everywhere in our modern world polluting and thereby hindering our expensive equipment in doing what it would be able to do were the pollution not there. My present LessLoss chain consists of C-Marc power cables, digital interconnect and speaker cables, all Entropic Processing. Add to that distributor and firewalls, also the oh so important Entropic Processing. As I like to experiment, learn, and pass on knowledge I presently have a somewhat extreme chain, more or less like a choo-choo train, some of the stuff on loan for the experiment and the knowledge of the lenders: From the Furutech Schuko outlet 2m C-Marc Power Cable (from now on CM PC) hooking up to 2 CM Firewall64x + 1 external CM FW640x + the latest LessLoss distributor with dual 640x firewalls inside, via 1m CM PC Entropic Processing (EP) + another identical distributor + CM PCs Entropic to all equipment. Speaker cable is CM Entropic with Entropic speaker firewalls going into satellites and subs. The result is a setup that can play at very low volume with an intensity and involvement that ought to be sought for by all audiophiles with family sleeping in neighboring rooms at the time of night when stereo sounds its best and genuine audiophiles are active. There’s a transparency and naturalness to the extremely coherent sound that makes it very easy to slip inside the musical event and easily hear just how the greatest of the greatest master their instruments down to the most subtle vibrato or understated attack. Of course, when you play louder things get even more involving and easier to grasp but still with a naturalness and musicality that lets you listen for hours and hours in a row without the slightest hint of listener fatigue. Aggressive music sounds aggressive but not tiresome, soft music sounds wonderfully soft but definitely not uninvolving. Attack and explosions in music sound scary if intended and scale, pace, timing, and rhythm is just present in the coolest and most natural way. In fact, it doesn’t take long before you completely forget the stereo and just hear the musicians or singers. Good live recordings almost make you wanna reach out and touch. “Just one more number,” keeps popping up in your mind until you have forgotten time and place often floating away on an inner travel to wonderful places. Did anybody think Zen? All this LL equipment is not needed to make a genuinely fine sounding setup, but have I yet reached the point where I cannot tell the difference when adding the next piece? Nope, you can never get too many firewalls it seems, but one always seems enough – until you add the next. My guess is, you cannot get too many of the newly introduced BlackGrounds either. In my mind it’s impossible to exaggerate the value of what LessLoss as a company succeeds in doing as music is the universal language and bearer of immense amounts of cultural goods that our generation is lucky enough to have access to through electronic media. The LessLoss vision potentially opens up virtual access to time travel to a plethora of incredible musical performances in a way other brands can only dream of. Getting as close to the very soul of the performers as possible is what that vision is all about. Only LessLoss offers a completely coherent upgrade road that step by step always takes you in the same direction, closer to the natural unrestricted sound of musical instruments and the skill of the performers. Should you ever need help or guidance, Louis Motek, head of the company, is always open to an often humorous always elevated and skilled discourse over this and that when it comes to his lovechild and music in particular. So, how much do I want LessLoss to succeed with their mission of (clean) Power to the People? Strangely, it now goes way beyond just making my own stereo sound stellar, as it almost gives me more pleasure to introduce it to others, passing on what truly cleaned up sound can do for their musical experience. Let me round this up by saying, of all the genuinely many items I have bought into my stereo I have never regretted one single purchase and I would not return one single piece even for a full refund because I was unhappy with it. I have upgraded items but always to the next LessLoss model. I may well do that again cause there’s even a friendly upgrade policy. What can I say but, Less loss, more pleasure.



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For best results with the <i>Blackbody v.2</i>, it is recommended to ground the unit. Take me to Grounding Cable Options here.




Take me to Plug-and-Play BlackGround 10x Power Base.




Blackground can be used in a variety of ways to elevate sonic performance. Below, you can see how to incorporate it in different applications. Blackground will not colour or skew the sound in any direction.

Instead, with each additional Blackground interface, the sonic results will become more and more transparent, insightful, rich in expression, and more easily comprehensible in focus and clarity. If you find yourself turning up the volume, that is the ultimate sign of progress, for if you test acoustically using a loudness meter, you will see that nothing has changed in terms of SPL. Sonic purity simply begs the listener for higher levels because of the aural attractiveness of newly revealed substantive detail.

Below, we divide the Blackground instructions into separate categories. Click each to jump to the corresponding section for details.

1-- General rule for all applications; performance-scaling
2-- Specific use for loudspeaker audio signals
3-- Specific use for unbalanced line level (RCA) audio signals
4-- Specific use for balanced line level (XLR) audio signals
5-- Specific use for AC power voltages
6-- Specific and unique use for the LessLoss Blackbody v.2





1--General rule for all applications and tips for performance scaling

For any signal, regardless of whether it is AC, DC, low voltage or high voltage up to 250V, one taps the ‘send’ voltage between power source and load and introduces this voltage unto the Blackground's contact post without marking. For DC applications, this is the positive voltage line. For AC applications, this is the phase positive line.

Likewise, for the load's ‘return’ signal, one taps the ‘return’ voltage between the load and power source. For DC applications, this is the negative voltage which returns to the power source. For AC applications, this is the phase negative line.

Both Blackground devices connect to a mutual ground plane which represents the ground potential of the earth.

If single-polarity Firewall current-conditioning modules are used, mind their respective directional arrows as indicated.

It is of no consequence exactly where along the lines the voltages for the Blackground are tapped. This can be at the source end or at the load end of the line. This can also be before the single-polarity Firewalls or after them.
To scale up performance, the number of Blackground interfaces can be doubled per line. Connect in the following way:
To further scale up performance, add the same number of Blackground interfaces to both send and return lines. Add them in the following way:
There is no known limit to the number of Blackground devices in use before the onset of diminishing returns. It is, however, recommended that before intense scaling, the available number of units should ideally be spread out between applications: on power supply voltages, on loudspeaker signals, online level signals and on Blackbody grounding lines. Concentrating many such modules on only one application will probably not lead to the most efficient results.

The modular nature of this product allows one to easily add to or change any number of units in an application any time in the future.




Protruding at the top are two contact posts. It is very easy to make contact. Use a Phillips screwdriver to attach a conductor end (for instance, an eyelet terminal). The bolts are already supplied with the unit. A small spade suitable for M3-size bolts can work just as well. LessLoss sells such custom-made C-MARC™ cables here



2--Specific use for loudspeaker audio signals

Tap the two lines, signal positive and signal negative, and lead them separately to the terminals of two separate Blackground interfaces, which are not marked. The terminals marked with the ground symbol are to be electrically connected to the ground of the earth.

For a stereo setup with two speakers, this equates to four units of Blackground interfaces.

Use with the Firewall for Loudspeakers?

You can most certainly use Blackground units in conjunction with the Firewall for Loudspeakers, to very good effect.

If you are using the Firewall for Loudspeakers, note that it is of no consequence whether you tap the signals before or after the Firewall. Please note also that it doesn't matter whether you tap the signals at the speaker end or at the amplifier's output end. We provide C-MARC™ Grounding Cables for this purpose. Speaker-terminal-sized spades and banana terminations are available. For best results, the ‘large’-size C-MARC™ wire is recommended.

Disregarding the possible use of Firewall for Loudspeakers, one channel's speaker connection looks like this:
‘Tapping’ the instantaneous voltage of a speaker signal simply means electrically connecting to each of the signal's polarities. Shown here are two blue tapping wires which each connect to a separate speaker signal polarity. Since no current flows through them, they are only at real-time voltage parity and have no influence on impedance or load for the amp.
To connect the two Blackgrounds, proceed as follows, and please note that there is no alternative connection method:
To scale up performance, two additional units per channel can be introduced in the following way. Again, please note that there is no alternative connection method.
To be clear, Blackgrounds can be introduced anywhere along the line:
To continue to ramp up performance, simply introduce more in pairs (of twos) per audio channel:
All the above is valid for only one channel. For a stereo pair, everything mentioned above will be multiplied by two. One set of two Blackgrounds will be for the Left channel's positive and negative polarities, and another set of two Blackgrounds will be for the Right channel's positive and negative polarities.





3--Specific use for unbalanced line level (RCA) audio signals

[Pictured above, two RCA splitters used to tap the RCA cable's signals into four Blackground units. One can tap the signals this way, or internal to either the signal sending equipment or the signal receiving equipment at the other end of the RCA cables adjoining the two pieces of equipment.]

Depicted below is how to connect Blackgrounds to a standard type of RCA unbalanced audio signal connection for one channel.
Tap the two lines, signal positive (send) and signal negative (return), and lead them separately to the terminals of two separate Blackground interfaces which are not marked. The terminals marked with the ground symbol must be connected electrically to the ground of the earth, not to the shield of the RCA line.

For a stereo pair of two such unbalanced signals, this means that you will use four units of Blackground interfaces.

Shown is the proper (and improper) way to carry out the connections.

To scale up performance, an additional two Blackground units per audio channel can be used. Again, below you see how to connect them correctly to scale up performance.
Note that it is of no consequence whether you tap the signals at the source end or the destination end. This can be done within the respective piece of audio equipment. We provide C-MARC™ Grounding Cables for this purpose. For best results, the ‘large’-size C-MARC™ wire is recommended.
To continue to scale up performance, one can add a multiple of two Blackground devices to each audio channel pair of send/return lines.




4--Specific use for balanced line level (XLR) signal connections

Please refer to the section above on RCA unbalanced signal connections. Substitute the signal positive (send) line for Pin 2 of the XLR connection, and the signal negative (shield or return) line for Pin 3 of the XLR connection.

In the balanced line application, the Pin 1, (shield, ground), connection, of the line itself, is not tapped and not fed to the Blackground device.

As with the unbalanced connection, here it is also of no consequence on which end of the line one installs the Blackground.





5--Specific use for AC Power voltages

Please refer to the above section on loudspeaker signal connections. Substitute the signal positive (send, or red) line for the power's live line, and the signal negative (return, or black) line for the power's Neutral line.

In the power line application, the ground connection of the power line itself is the very ground potential that the Blackground terminals with the ground symbol are to be connected to.

As with the speaker signal connection, here it is also of no consequence on which end of the power line one installs the Blackground. This can be internal to the wall outlet of the building, internal to a power distributor to the system or internal to individual pieces of gear.

Disclaimer

There is no claim by LessLoss that cotton-clad C-MARC™ bulk wire and cable adhere to any widely recognized standard of voltage or current carrying capacity. This is because the raw cotton-clad wire is a specialty wire for the sole purpose of achieving ultra-high performance. Insurance companies most likely do not recognize this type of insulation in their specification demands, and we (LessLoss) do not make such claims either. There is no voltage rating for this cable and no certificate of conformity with widely accepted standards.

For this reason, if you use it for any voltage larger than 24V, either make sure that in your application there is no possibility for the wires to touch, or add additional insulation like a braided protective sheath or a plastic tube of some sort of the thickness you yourself deem compatible with the specific application you intend to use it on.

Never expose open conductive contacts of high voltage. This can cause shock or death through electrocution!

When in doubt, consult a professional electrician.





6--Specific and unique use together with the LessLoss Blackbody v.2 ambient field conditioner

This is the only application in which the conductivity of the grounding line is lifted. This lifting is carried out internally to the Blackground device itself.

Typically the Blackbody v.2 is connected to the building's ground as follows:
[Pictured above, using one Blackbody without the Blackground interface]

This can be a single Blackbody or a string of more than one Blackbody all grounded together in series.

To properly integrate the Blackground device, connect as follows:
[Pictured above, Blackbody connected (1) to unmarked terminal (2) of Blackground unit. Other Blackground terminal, marked with the ‘ground’ symbol (3), connected to ground contact of wall outlet (4). House internal wiring feeds this contact to the physical earth (5).]

It is inconsequential as to what orientation the Blackground device is placed with regard to the Blackbody's position, angle, or vertical placement. The proper electrical connection as depicted is the only important factor here.

To scale up performance, two Blackgrounds can be connected as follows:
[Pictured above, Blackbody connected (1) to unmarked terminal (2) of first Blackground unit. The same unmarked terminal also connected to the unmarked terminal of the second Blackground unit. Other Blackground terminals, marked with the ‘ground’ symbol (3), both connected to ground contact of wall outlet (4). House internal wiring feeds this set of two contacts, both marked with ground symbols, to the physical earth (5).]

To scale up performance even more, we introduce another Blackground device in the following way:
[Pictured above, Blackbody connected to three unmarked Blackground terminals. Three other terminals of the Blackground units marked with ‘ground’ symbols connected to the building’s ground.]

If one has more than one Blackbody connected to more than one grounding pin on more than one power outlet, one can introduce a Blackground device on each of the final grounding lines which terminate in wall plugs. But the most efficient way to use multiple Blackbodies and multiple Blackground units is as follows:
[Pictured above, the best recommended use of two Blackground units and two Blackbody units together.]

The two general rules for scaled up performance using multiple Blackbodies and Blackground units are:

-- Connect Blackbodies either in series, in parallel, or in combinations of series and parallel. This is of no consequence.
-- Connect Blackground devices in parallel as shown. This is the most efficient way to use them, and the differences are audible.




FAQ


Please describe for me the aural effects I can expect when using the Blackbody v.2.


In general, the Blackbody, when placed correctly, imparts a feeling of smoothness and calm, ‘flow’, if you will, and, also greater detail. This detail is not of the sort where pixelation is more pronounced, but of the sort where your listening ‘microscope’ has a new depth of zoom factor.

Another analogy: Without the Blackbody, you look up at the night sky, but it is somewhat hazy with a washed-out background due to the light pollution in your town. With the Blackbody, you are transported to a rural environment far away from the metropolis. Looking up at the night sky, you now see so many more stars you were oblivious to before. What was perceived as a hazy background is now darker with more distinct stars from a far deeper cosmos.

Can you tell me more about proper placement?

You don't need to worry about exactly where to place the Blackbodies. Far more influential is that you follow the correct angle and directional setup requirements to get the best results. Assuming you are in the Northern Hemisphere, your proper Blackbody orientation will be north. Think of it this way. Imagine you want to place a small mirror such that the sun sees its own reflection. From the vantage point of the sun, the earth is basically seen as a dot. Do you think it even matters to the energy radiating down on your system exactly where in the room you place that mirror? Not at all. But at what angle you place that mirror is going to be far more influential. The reflection angle is what counts here, not where that reflection exactly takes place. (Here I used the sun as an example, but of course anyone who has read the 13-page Blackbody v.2 discourse, and has watched the videos we point to there, knows that it is the earth's magnetic field influencing the directional stream of cosmic radiation that dictates the local angle and direction we need to use.)

You can put them on top of speakers, on shelves of your rack, or even on gear lids. But it really is less important where you place them. What is far more important to consider is the proper angle and direction. Even placing them on the floor works very well, provided that you pay attention to the proper angle and direction. You will choose your custom angle stand, provided free of charge, using the simple tool we prepared for you in our web shop. It's easy to do by simply locating your house on the interactive map provided. The tool then spits out the proper angle required for that location, and when you order, we will custom manufacture you the stands using that given angle.

What grounding wire should I use? Any pointers here?

You can ground using any wire. You will probably see that the Blackbody v.2 will be somewhat less stable using solid core wire simply because solid core wire's stiffness can act like ‘coat hanger wire.’ You might inadvertently ‘yank’ the Blackbody, altering the direction at which you initially aimed it. You might want to tape your wire down to provide some tension release for the electrical connection to the Blackbody. This way, if you mess with some wires behind your system (who eventually doesn't?), you won't accidentally move the Blackbody. Our C-MARC™ wire is flexible and lightweight, but even so, this can be an issue in a finely set up situation. Especially if someone goes in to clean!

Are the effects measurable?

There was much work put into the development of this seemingly 'crazy' little device. Although the critical ear has guided us well, we remain very curious about possible measurement. We have already gathered some equipment to, in the near future, try to investigate and perhaps even measure(!) muon radiation patterns around the Blackbody. We'll see what becomes of this. Many recent advances in this field have made it possible for us to entertain this type of experimentation. Even just a few years ago, this type of thing would have been unthinkable.

What about burn-in? Does it work like an on/off switch, or is it more of a 'ramp-in' experience we know from cable swaps?

As mentioned above, the Blackbody focusses the sound, gives better clarity, and reveals much new detail, but does so not merely as a simple ‘on/off' switch when you introduce it or take it out. It goes more like this: Put it in, get ~80% of the result right away. Wait a while (maybe half a day), and you will gradually get the remaining ~20% performance. Now, take it out, lose ~80% of the performance, but retain about 20% for a while (this is kind of spooky at first - why should this happen?). After some time, the remaining ~20% effect fades out fully, and one is left again with the usual haze over the sound.

This has undoubtedly a serious explanation. Let us indulge in some guesswork here. Think of the daily heat cycle of the sun's radiation and the ground. During the day, the asphalt heats up, but when the sun sets, you can still feel the warmth radiating from the asphalt for a long while. Early in the morning, before sunrise, it is coldest. It heats up pretty slowly during the day, so that only after several hours of direct sunlight does the heat radiation from the sun add up and the asphalt reaches its hottest. Because of this cumulative effect, the surface temperature of asphalt only reaches its highest long after the sun has passed that day's zenith. On a hot summer day, this can actually be just prior to sunset. At dusk, and quite a long time afterwards, you can still feel that day's heat radiating off the asphalt, even when there is little, or no light left from the setting sun. Move to a grassy area and suddenly you feel how much faster the bare earth and vegetation get cold. The same thing applies in the morning, only in reverse. As the sun rises, the asphalt is still cold and only heats up gradually. In terms of the radiating heat, it definitely is not its hottest when the sun is directly overhead.

This analogy might apply, on a lower level, to cosmic radiation and the gear's interaction with it. Imparted muon (or other high-energy particle) radiation onto gear may, on some level, elicit a delayed effect response like how asphalt does regarding sunlight every day and evening. This might explain some aspect of the delayed response in sonic performance mentioned above. This is our best analogous guess as to why this ramp-in and ramp-out effect displays itself when experiencing the use of the Blackbody in a system.

Does it matter how I run my grounding cables?

It doesn't matter how you run the grounding cables from the Blackbodies. Let's say you have a string of seven inter-grounded Blackbodies and have one last grounding cable make contact with the building's ground. In an adjacent room you have some other equipment, and you have over there three additional Blackbodies with their own ground string of connections, again with one last cable making contact with building's ground. If you run the grounds together through a hole in the wall and ground them all into a single outlet, the results will be the same. Likewise, if you had all ten Blackbodies, each separately grounded to ten separate wall outlets, the results would be the same.

How do the Firewall 640x and Firewall for Loudspeakers compare to the new Blackground device?

One should consider the Firewall 640x (and Firewall for Loudspeakers) as current conditioners since the currents in question in fact flow right through the conditioner. The new Blackground interface, however, is a voltage conditioner since no currents flow through the device. Instead, with the Blackground, we tap the existing voltage at each signal conductor (regardless of whether it is AC or DC, positive (send) or negative (return), or Blackbody ground). This real-time voltage, regardless of what it is, is routed to the Blackground device on one terminal. The other terminal marked with the ground symbol is connected to the ground voltage of the building; this is really the ground potential of the earth itself, because the building's ground is a physical conductive stake in the ground.

Why? What's the point? The Oh My God particle.

High-energy particles traverse space at near the speed of light. The highest energy subatomic particle observed scientifically (so far) was named the OMG particle ‘...equivalent to a 142-gram (5oz) baseball travelling at about 28 m/s (100 km/h; 63 mph).’

We are surrounded by layers of protection. The first of these is the sun's magnetic field. The field does this shielding (actually, bending) for the highest, most deadly, energetic cosmic particles. The earth's magnetic field is yet another layer of protection. The earth's magnetic field bends remaining ionic radiation towards the poles. But some still gets through, and at this point we already know its statistically most likely angle and direction, given our location on the crust of the earth.

Muons and other subatomic particles constantly travel directly through buildings, ground, even our own bodies. This radiation is everywhere. If we cannot adequately shield ourselves from this inevitable cosmic influence, and we cannot dig an audiophile protection cave several kilometres underground in granite, we can at least seek ways to, in a way, ‘raise’ the desirable features of the earth's protection and implement them in an elegant, concerted way, directly at the signal's existing potential level instead of at the EM surroundings level, which anyway for cosmic particles is simply inconsequential. You can shield all you want using traditional means, but to no avail. Lightning rods operate by raising the ground potential up to their ionising tip, making it far more likely for lightning to strike them rather than nearby rooftops or other exposed raised structures such as power stations. With the Blackbody and Blackground we do something similar. The following analogy with baseball will pitch (ha!) an explanation.
Baseball analogy: The baseball is the cosmic charged particle. The pitcher is the source of the cosmic particle (supernova or whatever) [1.] and the batter is the cosmos which flings the particle in question out towards the earth [2.]. The catcher out in the field is the Blackbody, aimed at the proper angle and direction, ready to catch. [3.] Through a grounding wire, he throws the impulse as quickly as he can to the baseman. The baseman represents the Blackground signal-ground interface. [4.] He catches the throw with his glove and, with his shoe, stands on the base (ground potential) without physically tagging the runner (no electrical contact is made) [5.]. This represents the score's neutralisation. The particle is dealt with. Team Cosmic, you're out! The cheer from the stands of our team, Team Sonic, can be heard for miles.

There exist many so-called 'grounding boxes' in the market today. Is BlackGround one of these?


Absolutely NOT!... still, in a way, yes. These solutions which offer many ground connections and in their own ways condition the ground plane of the entire system, tap ground potential in different places throughout the system. But according to our understanding, they only go a part of the way, and they are belated in their treatment even at that. These devices are purported to try to capture ‘EMI/RFI’ small signals traveling everywhere in our audio systems and transform them into heat. However, this is not the precise concept behind the Blackground technology.

With Blackground technology, LessLoss takes a different approach. If your solution is even worrying about ‘EMI/RFI’ existing throughout the system, it is already too late. These signals are AC signals, and to fluctuate, they need a send path and a return path. There are always going to be such undesirable oscillations in high frequencies throughout a system and every electronics engineer works hard (or should work hard) to eliminate as much of these as possible. However, reliably measuring these at high frequencies is mostly a shot in the dark, as the lack of strict impedance matched lines at these high frequencies makes it almost impossible. Then there is also the widespread disregard that at these high frequencies this type of noise is even a threat.

You really must think of Blackground as addressing a far more pervasive and universal issue, and that is the issue of cosmic ionic particle precipitation. Think of this as a form of constant rain on our audio experience. It can be a light drizzle, or it can be a thunderstorm. We are not in control of it, but we can use what we know about it to our advantage. It will always be there no matter what we do, but we can guide it, using Blackgrounds like lightning rods, to where it will not cause the subtle EMI/RFI loops mentioned above. Those AC currents are on both the ground plane (and associated inter-connecting grounding wires) as well as on the signal lines. Every conductor interacts with its surroundings. But even the term 'surroundings' implies differentiating between signal and the EM field. This is a fallacy. The signal is made up of the very subatomic interactions that permeate all matter. Otherwise, we would have liquid copper flowing through tubes of nonconductive material.

If we deal with interference only on the ground connections, we are only capturing half of the issue. There are plenty of signal/ground interfaces within a system already. Basically, any resistor is such an interface. Any load is as well. This is the real ‘heat’ mentioned above in the paragraph about traditional ground boxes. This load is in fact the burning of a signal to some end. For us audiophiles, the primary end we are most familiar with is the physical driving of the loudspeaker in the form of vibrations. Heat is the loss of any resistor, coil, or load.

Perhaps some images will serve us well here. Consider the images below as idealised snapshots of cosmic precipitatory subatomic particle interaction. What you need to realise is that we are not speaking of billiard balls, and we are certainly not speaking about one thing happening after another in a simple string of events on a simple one-dimensional timeline.

When dealing with high-energy subatomic particle precipitation, we cannot lose sight of how exotic the concepts here are. For instance, the OMG particle mentioned a few questions above was travelling very near to the speed of light. “At this speed, if a photon were travelling alongside the particle, it would take over 215,000 years for the photon to gain a 1 cm lead, as seen from the earth's reference frame.” We are not equipped here to go into a full-blown scientific discussion of the actual theory involved but suffice it to say that there are relativistic concepts at play here which make the baseball analogy above somewhat misleading. Just think about the following images as not necessarily happening on a single timeline, with some interactions having a jump start in front of others and recall the famous post-graduate course question as well which asks what the length of a single photon is, given certain conditions in a room. The correct answer is about one meter(!) in length. So, for your imaging you can forget raindrops and billiard balls and all manner of simple colliding we used to make our point. This stuff is much more exotic. And let us not forget that even our signals are made of subatomic particles.

How else can you simply explain the core functionality of the BlackGround?

Let’s start with how lightning rods work. A lightning rod is a conductive extension of the ground potential up into the sky. At the top, it is pointy, and this means that a small corona discharge occurs at this place. Why? There is a concept called atmospheric voltage. The farther up you go from the surface of the earth, the higher the atmospheric voltage. It goes up at about 100V per meter. Once you get up to the ionosphere, you are dealing with conductive plasma. When you extend the ground voltage up to higher voltage surroundings, you get a large voltage potential (difference) at the tip of the lightning rod. When a high-voltage lightning discharge occurs, it seeks ground potential. Since the ground potential is ‘piercing’ the sky at the tip of the lightning rod, the lightning will naturally choose that path as that’s the path of least resistance. You can watch this video:



Imagine a super slow-motion film during which the various voltages in a sound system fluctuate. This is like the ions in the air from the video. They are not at ground potential. They fluctuate in real time, whereas the atmospheric voltage is more or less static. In addition, there are sources of noise that come from the continuous cosmic ionic particle bombardment, what we described as “rain” on our audio system. Ideally, we want this bombardment to find an electrical path which will not interfere with our various signals.

Enter *Blackground*, our innovative solution, by which we have in effect generated a continuous lower impedance path for the cosmic ionic particle 'rain' to follow. And how? By pairing real-time voltages in the sound system with the ground potential. Any electrical discharge will always choose the lowest impedance path. It represents a lower impedance path because the Blackground is always at the same voltage that the signals are at. In this sense, we keep the resistance path between noisy atmospheric voltages and the ground at the lowest we can possibly muster. Not a small feat! Thus, the noise from cosmic radiation chooses this path and is dealt with even before it interferes with the prized signals we want to protect from these interactions, and our music can flow more freely. In fact, because the path presented is following the signal voltages in real time, it can be said that the signals themselves now become the conductors for the foreign noise instead of succumbing to intermodulation by it.

The reason why more and more Blackgrounds (and Blackbodies) are effective is that with every additional unit, we are lowering and lowering this impedance path, so the results in terms of sonic purity are better and better as statistically less and less intermodulation occurs.







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