10/11/2025
At the weekend, Black Ravioli took part in our first ever live demonstration at a HiFi exhibition. We’ve previously been exhibited by retailers, but only as accessories under equipment — this time, we took full control and presented a direct comparison ourselves.
Our setup featured two Technics GR turntables running through a mixer into a HiFiMan headphone amplifier and headphones, allowing us to fade seamlessly between them. One turntable was fitted with our Record Ground and the new Technics Next Level grounding feet, while the other ran completely unmodified.
The HiFiMan amplifier and headphones — kindly supplied by HiFiMan — responded to the Universal Next Level Grounding feet very positively indeed, clearly revealing the sonic benefits and making it easy for listeners to hear the difference.
We were also fortunate to have the generous support of Stewart at shinyvinylrecordcleaning.com, who provided double copies of cleaned and prepared records. This allowed us to sync the two turntables perfectly and fade between them for direct A/B comparisons.
Among the various albums played, Dire Straits’ Brothers in Arms proved to be the popular album of choice for the weekend — its superb production and dynamics made it an ideal showcase for the improvements brought by our grounding technology.
Over the course of the weekend, we ran more than 50 demonstrations. Only a couple of listeners were resolute that they could not hear any sonic difference, and four described the change as minimal. However, the vast majority were overwhelmingly positive, commenting that the improvement was far greater than expected. Many also praised the style of the demonstration itself, noting that there was nothing else at the show quite like it. Even in the challenging acoustics of a hotel corridor, the results were clear, consistent, and convincing.
While overall attendance at the show was modest, our small table was busy throughout — in fact, we couldn’t realistically have squeezed in many more visitors!
A highlight came on Sunday when Jay Garrett from StereoNet joined one of our final demonstrations and was clearly impressed by what he heard.
This event has given us a wealth of independent appraisal confirming that, even in brief demonstrations and less-than-ideal conditions, the benefits of Black Ravioli’s grounding solutions can be heard immediately and consistently.
We’ll now be taking the Ravioli demonstration on the road, so if you’re interested in hearing it for yourself, I’d love to meet up at a future event.
Thank you to everyone who came along, listened, and shared their thoughts — it was a fantastic weekend all round!
— Thomas, Black Ravioli
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