"Floating ground" and Electraglide Fat Man p. c.?


Is there any way that I can confirm that my Electraglide Fat Man 2000 Gold power cord has a "floating ground"?
mshan
Dear Mshan, use a multimeter and check the impedance between the (2)grounds. (1) on the plug and (1)on the IEC (middle contact on both). Switch the multimeter to the Omega. If it is zero or close to it, you are grounded, if it reads infinite, you're floating. Hope this helps!
Dan
dedicated audio™
Just received 2 Fat Man Ks from a dealer on Audiogon.
Both have faulty or non-existent ground/earth terminals.
Needless to say this is potentially dangerous, and could also degrade sound quality.
A fairly knowledgeable poster at audioasylum responded recently there to this same thread over there that this cord comes standard with no ground and that grounded cords are made only on request. FWIW, many of the cords that I've used have sounded much better with floating grounds. Safety, I guess is another issue.
Yes,
I have just queried the two dealers for Electraglide here at Audiogon:
Standard reply is that the floating ground is usual for all Electraglide cables
You have to opt for the ground, and the floating ground cable is better sounding (according to the dealers).
I would have liked to have known about this before ordering the cables. In fact I had pointedly asked one of the dealers about the floating ground and he did not seem to know about it until he asked Scott Hall at Electraglide.
This was after I had made my purchase and received my cables: Fat Man Ks.
With a high current amp and no ground, there is a safety issue, like it or not, particularly at 110 V.
The sound quality issue I honestly do not know. I am unable to make an A/B comparison as all I have are floating ground Electraglides! Theoretically removing the ground can eliminate ground loop problems if you have them. However according to Russ Andrews (one of the original gurus of power cables) this is not an ideal solution. It is better to have a chassis ground and solve the groud loop problem: please look up his free downloadable booklet on power supplies/mains etc at www.russandrews.com
Have tried out my Electraglides: Fat Man K and Genghis Khan. So Far I am please with their performance: worth the price floating grounds or not.
Some people might not want to float equipment designed for grounded operation, might damage you or the equipment. If your system has a ground issue and floating helps, you might have actually bought a very expensive cheater plug if thats why you like these cords.

steve
Electraglide's power cord products are pretty amazing and are absolutely NOT simply an expensive cheater plug.

Also - Electraglide is NOT the only high-end power cord manufacturer which floats the ground as a standard.

While floating the ground on a power cord may seem like a hazzard, rest assured that your system (inclucing the component with the floating ground power cord) is 100% grounded. This is achieved through the interconnects which connect the chassis of all components. While this may have a higher resistance due to the smaller gauge wire in interconnects, the system is still grounded.
I would be interested to know what other cords besides electraglide which floats the ground as a standard. I am currently using cheater plugs on my amps and am looking for cords without the ground loop.
Dmailer, Most companies which float the ground don't "advertise" it. A while back I sent out a number of emails to manufacturers asking if their cords would work at optimum levels in my system which had NO GROUNDED OUTLETS. To my surprise, a few of the manufacturers informed me that their cords could be special ordered with grounds but as standard equipment they did not have ground conductors.

I would tell you the manufacturers names but that's not cool since they gave me this information in confidence.

Not having a ground conductor on a power cord is a great way to prevent ground loop and hum don't you think?

If I were you, I'd ask around to the various companies and see what they say.