Isolated Ground electrical outlets ???

I was told that an isolated ground to a specific outlet will only work if that outlet is on a dedicated circuit. Other than with a dedicated circuit, you can set up a ground loop, or even worse, a voltage differential between that outlet's grounding, and the main ground. Such a condtion could result in not only increased noise, BUT A POTENTIAL VOLTAGE CONDUCTED ALONG THE GROUNDING WIRES! What sayeth you, Sean? Happy Tunes!

I've tried running a ground wire from the plug to a grounding clamp on a cold water pipe. Did nothing for the sound at all, I suspect you'd be better off with a ground rod buried in your yard, 4' deep and run a "star ground" off that. If you go with a dedicated ground I suspect you'll also go for dedicated lines while you're at it. Go to the trouble, one of the most dramatic and cost effective tweaks there are. Period. As Cornfedboy once told me, "you're not a tweak until you rent a ditchwitch for a weekend". Jeff

I have an isolated (separate) grounding system for my five dedicated outlets. It consists of three 6 ft. copper rods driven into the ground in a triangular pattern, and it's within 10 ft. of the outlets. I had the electricians install this as part of the dedicated "package" and so the extra cost wasn't much. It's connected to my dedicated sub-main panel with 8-10 gauge braided copper wire.

So, how does it work? I've disconnected the dedicated ground wire on a couple of occasions and could hear no difference in music quality/character. Still, for the small cost I don't mind having it there, and by doing it I found out that the main ground must be effective. Good Luck and Cheers. Craig

I think for an issolated ground to really make a difference, the component that creates the noise (most likely a digital component like a CD player and DAC) should be issolated from the other components. If they are all on the one ground, whether issolated or not from the rest of the house, they will pick up the noise from the dirty digital or other component.
Using ungrounded outlets (or removing/floating the ground on the power cord) for your non-digital components will accomplish the same thing, as long as that does not create other problems. If the component only has a two prong plug, you are already clear.