Silent Angel FGC

Well, yes, it took a while for me to convince myself to try one of these products.

The “better grounding” part I was aware of, but I waited more than a decade to purchase my first grounding device, since my own situation is unusual. The house is built on the granite rock of the Laurentian, and even though I tried my best, the ground impedance, measured with a very expensive professional continuity tester, was never less than 50 ohms — a recipe for sonic disaster.

I waited because I was torn between piling up many passive boxes, which would mean endless fine-tuning, or buying the brute force of the super-expensive active solutions.

Silent Angel gave me an excuse to indulge in experimentation when they brought out a more affordable solution.

The “all-inclusive” approach with the FGC gave me doubts at first. Grounding, Schumann, 432 Hz all seems pretty ambitious for a single box. Also, the “science” around 432 Hz, as with many other topics in audio, is awfully bloated. One of my Audiomat customers in Switzerland was a specialist in Northern Indian raga, and invited Indian musicians, at his expense, to come and play in the West. I got used to their way of deciding before each concert what the fundamental would be that day, according to the mood of the moment and their collective understanding. I learned that, for Indian musicians, obsessing over a specific frequency is, well, limited, to put it politely.

So “forcing” 432 Hz musical reproduction, even if it really does appear to change our mood, is not something I endorse. ”Injecting” 432 Hz in one way or another, however, seemed interesting, the “quieting” effect having been acknowledged by many over time.

So...

As always, the proof is in the pudding.

Here at Mutine, testing the FGC went quite fast. On the reference system, the improvements were immediate.

It is too soon for me to assess fully which part does what. I tested the grounding first, and it works.

I have used Schumann resonators for ages. With the FGC, I settled for the “high” frequency generator setting — the famous 432 Hz, to complement what I already had.

This worked too. There was real improvement in textures, presence, finesse, airiness.

All in all, as is typical of high-end gear, the results are both “modest” in a too-quick A/B “analytical” test, but become addictive in longer listening sessions, when we are seeking connection to the music.

My feeling is that other so-called accessories should have priority, for example cables, racks, vibration control devices. But for a fully optimized system, the improvements from the FGC bring the experience closer to the dreamed-of illusion: listening to real performers in a real space. Totally recommended!