audiophile quality cheater plugs?

I believe that the dangerous difference is whether the chassis of a component is grounded, by the IC's, or not. I know very little about this other than getting the snot shocked out of me quite a few times over the past 30 years. The last time being when my amp had a faulty chassis ground. In this case touching the metal end of an IC and the chassis at the same time made a complete circuit which traveled from one hand, through my chest, and out the other hand. The amp has since been repaired and as I recall the wall outlet was not grounded at the time (due to a clueless electrician who did some work on our place). Another member has mentioned to me that not running a ground can sometimes create a deficiency in the bass response of a system, though I never did check this out properly as I was too busy being shocked at the time.

Audiofile9 is correct

I think all interconnects HAVE to be "grounded" at both ends. I think Liguy might be talking about the "shielding", which is often separate from the ground, and connected at only one end. However, it is my understanding that any electronic circuit needs TWO connections to close the loop. Thus, if an interconnect was not grounded at both ends, then it would only have the inside pin or "hot" connected, and no other method to complete the "loop", which would prevent any signal from flowing at all - no sound. Any engineers around?

However, I have no idea about the safety issue. I have had many systems where I have had to "cheat" the ground on one of more components to get rid of humn, and have never had any shocks or overheating or anything like that....

Ninja and Drrdiamond are absolutely incorrect and dangerously so!!! Not all interconnects are grounded at both ends. This could lead to a situation where a piece of equipment is floating and that is dangerous. If you must use a cheater cords make sure that you ground all of the chassis to one point, which will probably fix the ground loop, but do not under any circumstances rely solely on the interconnects for ground.

Or you can just cut the ground pin off. Ouch! Thats what i've done with the amps in both my systems. Floating the ground is really not a big deal. Many people do this a never have a problem with it. I've done it for years and I leave my stuff on 24X7.

Ninja is right!

Its ok to use cheater plugs. Your innerconnects will ground the system. Krell covers this in their owners manual. I would prefer to find the offending loop and remove it. It can be a trying process to say the least.

You should NOT use cheater plugs if your equipment has a three prong plug.Find your soucrce of hum within your cables or cable entering the house.