Entreq

Energy Transforming Equipment

Entreq are a Swedish company and the name Entreq is an abbreviation of the term “Energy Transforming Equipment”. They manufacture an extensive range of ground boxes and ground cables, loudspeaker cables, interconnect cables, power cables and some key accessories to help get the best from your hi-fi system.

Entreq keeps me incredibly busy, probably more than any other brand in my portfolio if truth be told. It is incredibly effective at improving system performance and the vast majority of people who listen to some in their systems end up buying some and most customers end up coming back for more, which says a lot about a product and how effective it is.

Entreq are probably most well known for their range of ground boxes, designed to remove noise from whatever you connect them to.  The modern home is electrically a noisy environment, there are countless devices which create noise and unwanted pollutants from things such as network routers, dishwashers, fridges, countless phone and tablet chargers. A hifi system itself can also create noise, all of which can interfere with your system to perform to the best of its ability.

Of course, you can’t hear it this noise and most people will be happy with their system to some level (although many aren’t based on the number of people I speak to) but if you can remove that noise, or deal with it effectively you can dramatically improve the performance of your hi-fi and when you go back you will quickly realise just how much noise was present and how it gets in the way of the music.

Connect an Entreq ground box to a component in your system and in simple terms it will remove noise and interference contained within the signal path. The sonic benefit to this can be quite profound, it does vary from system to system, but it makes the music more natural and refiner, with greater detail and information, but without making the sound strident or lively. Entreq is all about a natural, organic presentation, the removal of the noise lets the system and music really breath and it brings out subtle micro details and textures in the music that previously were being masked or subdued by noise.

This noise is extracted to the box, in most cases once a box is connected to a component in your system you can detect a change in the music within 2 or 3 songs being played, but to be it does take a few days to fully do its thing, 4 or 5 days being optimum. Some people often find the benefit can be initially quite subtle, but after a few days when you remove the box it benefit it brings becomes much more obvious.

Watching a customer listen to his system with a ground box connected for the first time is a brilliant experience and it almost always results in the same feedback, “how is it possible?” or words to that effect, a customer recently said to me “I don’t understand how it works or why it works, but it don’t want to be without it now I’ve experienced it”.

In many systems a box is connected to just one key component (like an integrated amplifier) and in some systems we may connect to 2 or 3 items across a number of boxes. No two systems are the same and different systems and components can interact with one another in many different ways so there is no magic recipe card to what is required. If you stream music (Qobuz/Tidal etc) one key area to explore is connecting a ground box to your router (and if present a network switch), over the past 12 months this has proven to be a particularly effective upgrade.

People are often initially a little sceptical about these wooden boxes but once they’ve experienced them in their system it doesn’t take very long for them to be convinced of their merits!

They have a comprehensive range of boxes, varying in size, performance, some boxes are single cell boxes only (designed for 1 component to be connected to – like a Macro Kit), whereas others are multi-cell boxes where you can connect a number of items (Tellus II Infinity, Poseidon, TenTen)

Entreq aren’t just about ground boxes – they also produce a significant range of interconnects, speaker cables and power cables, as well as a superb equipment support and a few key accessories to help get the best out of the ground boxes.

Their range of speaker cable and interconnects are particularly strong, their are 6 cables in the range and at each level offer superb performance, engagement and a real connection to the music.

There is a lot of information on the various links below about the different products Entreq produce, as ever I’m always happy to help and advise wherever I can.