Cheap grounding solution

Well it did cost you a PC you could otherwise have sold. But yeah, okay, I get it. Is this better than ordinary wire? Probably would be, I guess. But did you try it that way first just to see? How many Krissy filters do you have? If none or if that question doesn't even make sense PM, we need to talk. ;)

Alternatively terminate with RCA plug not connecting the centre pin and use spare RCA input on Pre or DAC

The UK has a different method of grounding an electrical service in a residential dwelling unit than the USA as I understand from what I have been able to read about it. In the US there is a good chance doing what you did in the UK would cause a ground loop hum here in the US when the audio equipment is connected together by wire interconnects.


Also worth mentioning, well designed audio equipment the circuit ground of the equipment is not connected directly to the chassis of the equipment as the EGC, (Equipment Grounding Conductor) is required to be. Your added EGC connects the circuit ground of the equipment directly to the chassis grounded EGC.

An EGC and or earth ground does not possess some magical, mystical power that sucks nasties from an audio system. If anything it can cause more harm that good. An EGC’s purpose is for electrical safety.

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Grounding Myths

"Electromagnetic Compatibility Engineering" by Henry Ott

3.1.7 Grounding Myths

More myths exist relating to the field of grounding than any other area of electrical engineering. The more common of these are as follows:

1. The earth is a low-impedance path for ground current. False, the impedance of the earth is orders of magnitude greater than the impedance of a copper conductor.

2. The earth is an equipotential. False, this is clearly not true by the result of (1 above).

3. The impedance of a conductor is determined by its resistance. False, what happened to the concept of inductive reactance?

4. To operate with low noise, a circuit or system must be connected to an earth ground. False, because airplanes, satellites, cars and battery powered laptop computers all operate fine without a ground connection. As a matter of fact, an earth ground is more likely to be the cause of noise problem. More electronic system noise problems are resolved by removing (or isolating) a circuit from earth ground than by connecting it to earth ground.

5. To reduce noise, an electronic system should be connected to a separate “quiet ground” by using a separate, isolated ground rod. False, in addition to being untrue, this approach is dangerous and violates the requirements of the NEC (electrical code/rules).

6. An earth ground is unidirectional, with current only flowing into the ground. False, because current must flow in loops, any current that flows into the ground must also flow out of the ground somewhere else.

7. An isolated AC power receptacle is not grounded. False, the term “isolated” refers only to the method by which a receptacle is grounded, not if it is grounded.

8. A system designer can name ground conductors by the type of the current that they should carry (i.e., signal, power, lightning, digital, analog, quiet, noisy, etc.), and the electrons will comply and only flow in the appropriately designated conductors. Obviously false."

Henry W. Ott

Who is Henry Ott?
http://www.hottconsultants.com/bio.html
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I am obviously not in any way a technical expert but it seems similar devices (Gutwire) are positively reviewed by the likes of audiobacon, audiophileman and 6moons and sold by the CableCo. Seems another religious war is in the making.

You lost me at 

...  and insert power plags into a switched of mains socket, ideally on a different circuit.

Do you mean you plug your modified to ground-only cable into a wall socket that is turned off? The other side goes onto a grounding lug on the device?

I am assuming on the socket where you plug in the C13 plug of your "regular" power cable into your device you would want that ground conductor disconnected yes?

You plug the ground only connected power plug into the socket indeed. The whole idea is to get a strong ground connection as often circuit boards are not properly connected

By chance I happened on a good use for disused power cords: Disconnect live and neutral leads at the power plug and connect them all to ground. Take off the IEC connector and terminate all to a single spade connector. On your DAC or preamp connect spade to grounding post or casing and insert power plags into a switched of mains socket, ideally on a different circuit.

Sure sounds like the EGC pin of the power cord plug is connected to the EGC contact of the receptacle. (EGC is NOT lifted at the wall switched receptacle by the switch).

Alternatively terminate with RCAplug not connecting the centre pin and use spare RCA input on Pre or DAC

Other end of power cord conductors are connected the outer ground of the RCA plug.

ideally on a different circuit.

Sure sounds like a recipe for a ground loop.

antigrunge2 OP532 posts

06-14-2021
9:16am

I am obviously not in any way a technical expert but it seems similar devices (Gutwire) are positively reviewed by the likes of audiobacon, audiophileman and 6moons and sold by the CableCo. Seems another religious war is in the making.

@ antigrunge2 

Would you please post a Link to a Website for the Ground.....
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Here you go: https://audiobacon.net/2017/12/09/gutwire-perfect-ultimate-ground-cables-review/

I sort of do that already. I run off battery, and the battery/inverter does not have ground. The AC from my inverter goes into my balanced transformers. In order for my balanced transformers to work, I'm grounding them off a wall plug. 

I have been using regular 14 ga hookup wire and not a shielded cable as your post suggests. I'll grab one of my extension cables and see how well it works off a different breaker. I'm a little hesitant to hack up one of my good cables. 

It all depends on how dirty or clean your local environment is: I live near two schools with 1500 pupils in the centre of London and get RFI/EMI by the boat load. Using unshielded cables anywhere near the power supply simply asks for ingress of such…

If the overriding concern is EMI/RFI shielding, a polyethylene sleeve or wrap shielding an extension cord would a good option.

Any shielding that is grounded would simply transfer the noise on the shield to the ground conductor and be ineffective. Any proprietary design that introduces a capacitance across the conductors would also not be of value.

A "good" power cable would not necessarily be the optimal choice for this application, as they often have grounded shielding. 

@pauly

actually no, as I said, cnnect all three leads (i.e. ground, live and neutral to the ground post on both ends, so your consideration doesn‘t come into it. The point is to provide a high capacitance link to the ground, shielding comes from the materials used to shield the conductors, not the ground part of the connection.
As I said,  I tried this and it worked beautifully

actually no, as I said, cnnect all three leads (i.e. ground, live and neutral to the ground post on both ends,

I get that and don’t suggest otherwise. The three conductors in the cable acts as a single, lower gage conductor, lowering resistance.

The point is to provide a high capacitance link to the ground,

How does connecting the three wires create a “high capacitance link” to ground? It will lower the resistance, yes, create capacitance no. 

shielding comes from the materials used to shield the conductors, not the ground part of the connection.

Many cables’ ground conductor IS the shielding, meaning that on those cables connecting the three conductors will result in having no  shielding at all.