Ground Cheaters-Good or Bad?

It's likely safe, but not recommended. Because since everything is cheated, you have no grounding to any of the components. Also any stray AC leakage is now carried through the signal path (your interconnects) which should not be a good thing. To answer the safety question you really need a multimeter. Even a cheapy fron The Shack will tell if anything has stray AC on it. Measure from a known earth ground to each of the metal cases (the components) and to other exposed metal surfaces (like RCA plug hoods). If you find any large stray AC voltages, then you're not safe. A neon lamp will also work, but doesn't fire on until ~90VAC, so if it lights you KNOW you're in trouble for sure!

thx for the ideas...Ive read printed articles from Michael Elliot former pres/designer of Counterpoint gear..that all that needs to be grounded is one component in your system and that the cables/interconects serve to ground the rest thus eliminating the dangerous electrocution possibility. What I would like to know, if anyone knows, is that say I have my amps plugged into one Power Wedge and all the amps are cheated including the Power Wedge itself, and I have all my other sources into another power wedge on a different circuit..all also cheated...as long as one this Power wedge is grounded is that safe?

Fortunately I haven't (yet) had to use a lifted-ground to eliminate my (rare) hum problems, so I can't speak from self-experience. Electrically this is a no-no, & is even considred dangerous, esp. if there's a bypass cap. failure, etc, internal to the "problem" component. But realistically you can normally get away with doing this. I have read that componenets can be "tuned" to sound best when ideally polarized as-such, but have never tried it. One possible approach is to experiment with Mike VansEvers' (www.vansevers.com) two-prong reversible power cords. They have detachable grounding leads, which are then (theoretically = read disclaimer) connected, once the 'best sounding' polarity is found for that component. But then again, some 'philes realize a better sound with no ground at all. I question the practice of using a cheap cheater adaptor on a high-Q power cord; you're possibly degrading it via that approach? But if that works for you, you could (theoretically) remove the ground prong from the original plug with a hacksaw. Or you could (theoretically) even remove the ground connection inside your outlet box (although that would un-ground everything pluged in there). Another possibility is to buy some Wattgate, etc. plugs and use them in place of original plugs, sans ground prong. Then there's the dedicated-ground approach to try too, but that's not a cheater plug, & falls way outside the ream of Justlisten's question. Sorry - I've gone on...

Are you referring to the "female 3 plugs-to-male 2 plug" adapter (Like cutting the ground plug off)? I would suggest using an isolation transformer before defeating the earth ground to your system. Defeating the earth ground gets rid of the 60hz noise, but can leave your system (and anything touching it) vunerable to electrocution. We run into this problem all the time in recording studios, and the dangers of the "3rd prong clip" solution outweigh the benefits. If I'm off topic, I apologize for the intrusion.

I've wondered the same thing too. And I've concluded that a cheater plug doesn't affect a good after market power cord because the power cord comes after the cheater plug. I've had to use a cheater plug to keep my McCormack DNA-2DX amp from humming, and I also use a Syn. Res. Master Coupler. I suppose I'd feel better with an audiophile certified cheater plug though. They could be a whole new class of tweaks. Cheers. Craig.