AC grounding

The apparent necessity of a "cheater plug" in any system indicates that one or more of the components employee an ineffective grounding scheme. The earlier posts that raise the concern of safety are very valid points. When a component has its third wire (mains ground) disconnected, then only connection to the safety ground is via the connections made to other components, typically this would be through the shield of the interconnects. While the interconnect may be capable of carrying the fault current, the internal path is unlikely to have the capacity to sustain the fault. What could result is that the internal ground path might open, this would leave the product with the cheater plug unprotected (now a shock hazard) and could have damaged the product(s) to which it is connected. Rather than try to apply an ill-advised fix (a cheater plug) try to isolate the actual cause of the problem. You might find that the manufacturer of one component has failed to follow good grounding practices or perhaps you have an external leakage current path (cable TV connection, etc). Play it safe and don't do things that might result in a hazardous condition. Kevin Halverson

It must be true in that my new Krell HTS (pre/proc) clearly states "Do not remove or bypass the ground pin on the end of the power cord. This could cause radio frequency interference to be introduced into your playback system". My new Krell KAV250a (amp) does not state anything like that.

Yep,Mr. Corn fed is right.Only use a cheater if it reduces hum.This will usually be on the amp.ONLY.---No other cheaters need apply.If you get a large static shock from the carpet when touching the amp.,on a low humid.day don't do the cheater on the amp,try a different component.Your amp is telling you something,(ground me)- a tiny static is ok.

this represents a crude form of "star grounding," which i believe is dangerous. it won't work at all unless the electronics terminated into cheaters are grounded to the piece (usually the pre) terminated into a 3-prong outlet, w/ ground.