Next-gen GroundAray to reduce HF noise on AV gear

The Chord Company has announced a new development of its proprietary ARAY noise-reduction technology. The GroundARAY is high-frequency-noise-reduction device that connects to unused sockets on AV equipment, providing a low-impedance route for HF noise to pass through, effectively improving the noise floor of any host product.

Hand-built at Chord Company’s Wiltshire factory, the GroundARAY is a cylindrical design made from CNC-machined thick-walled aluminium; the thick walls themselves stop the device from contributing HF noise. The device is available in six termination options, including USB A, RCA phono and XLR.

The GroundARAY boasts five separate noise-reduction systems, all working across different HF noise ranges and operating in parallel to convert undesirable HF electrical noise into heat.

The advanced technologies provide a very low-impedance, high-bandwidth route for HF noise to pass into, effectively ‘pulling’ noise from the signal ground of the host equipment, says the company.

Each GroundARAY cylinder is filled with a carefully chosen material to deaden noise. The final assembly is then locked into place to reduce any effects from acoustic vibration.

Chord says the GroundARAYs are most effective when used across several devices in an AV system, including screens and projectors. The devices plug into existing empty sockets and can be used individually, or in multiples, such as across left and right outputs. With DACs and streamers, GroundARAYs can be used with unused digital inputs.

Doug Maxwell, Chord Company’s Sales Director said: “After four years of research and development, I’m thrilled to see our latest generation of ARAY noise-reduction technology in production. The GroundARAY project has been fascinating for us as a company and gives us the ability to further reduce noise in our customers’ systems as the technology complements our TunedARAY and SuperARAY cable technologies. Best of all, GroundARAY improves the equipment we already own and brings noticeable improvements across all manner of AV devices; everything can benefit.”

The technology has been offered since 2012, when Chord Company introduced its TunedARAY mechanical tuning system. The SuperARAY followed, but at that point the ARAY designs were always specific to the cable they were working with.

In 2017, Chord Company started to prototype a next-generation ARAY system, one that would work over the widest range of high frequencies possible, regardless of cable design.

The resulting GroundARAY is able to work with different types of AV equipment, via plug adaptors: RCA; DIN; BNC; RJ45; USB Type-A and XLR male and female. GroundARAYs are priced at £550 each.