Ungrounded power cord: Will I die?

"Typical stereo electronics will (probably) not kill you if somehow a short develops to ground."

It is not short to ground but short to case, that we worry about and we (probably) don't want to be killed.

"The real exception is tubed electronics, and Color tube TVs. Both carry fatal voltages inside, and should be treated with respect.

Any 110V device carry fatal voltage inside and should be treated with respect.

"And no one does not have to be worried about items with only a two prong plug."

You have to be worried if equipment was designed to be used with three prong plug. Two prong plug devices are designed differently (plastic case or metal case separated by plastic inside). Converting device designed to work with ground prong (isolation class I) using cheater plugs is unwise and dangerous. Recommending it to others is even worse.

One could go technical with requirements (double insulation, clearances, leakage currents etc), but why?
Take Herman's sound advice "If it came with a three prong plug then safety standards dictate it should be there"
Logical and simple.

You can play with ICs, speaker cables etc. but this (safety) has to be done by the book.

Electrocution = result
Stupidity = reason.

Total number of people killed from home stereo, TV etc. is about 3 per year.

www.cpsc.gov/library/shock95.pdf

Chance of 1 in 100 million is not big but remember that ones who died had most likely something wrong with the wiring or grounding. What percentage of people have wrong grounding? Most of people buy equipment and don't modify it or use cheater plugs. Let say that one percent has wrong wiring or no grounding. Now your chances of fatal accident got 100 times higher - 1 in a million. Take into account that it is amount per year and we like to be alive for, let say, next 50 years - now your chance is 1 in 20 thousand. It might be still small but you would be ecstatic to play lottery at such odds. Don't play lottery with your life.

I have another problem with this attitude toward safety. I might be ignoring safety here and there, but would never ever tell anybody that it is OK to do so. That would be irresponsible and stupid of me. Would you recommend to your friends modifications to their car braking system claiming that only one car in so many millions have accident from malfunctioning of the brakes? No because it would place them in danger.

As for floating shields - they should be grounded. Non magnetic shield protects from electromagnetic pickup by means of skin effect. It means that current is induced, since non magnetic shield cannot stop it, but travels on the outside - shield because of skin effect. Equivalent field in the center of conductor is zero. Shield has to be grounded for this to work. At lower frequencies skin effect stops working but cable is too short to become effective antenna (below 1/10 of the wavelength).

Switching power supplies generate noise but it is noise at high frequency easier to filter out than 120Hz. For that reason Jeff Rowland uses switching supply in Capri preamp where efficiency is irrelevant. His newest class AB power amp model 625 has 1MHz switcher. It is difficult to say what a switcher is because every linear power supply is switching power supply operating at 120Hz where width of the current spikes is load depended. Properly executed SMPS switches at zero voltage/zero current and can be very quiet but they got bad rap from poorly designed cheap computer supplies. Don't forget that linear supplies are unregulated while SMPS are line and load regulated.
http://jeffrowlandgroup.com/kb/questions.php?questionid=145

Herman, I'm not sure of that. Chances of being struck by lightning are pretty similar 1 in 1 million but people still take safety precautions, golf courses are being evacuated, sport events outside suspended etc. Again - chance of one in 1 million is in any given year. In your lifetime you have at least fifty time higher chance - 1 in 20,000. I don't go outside during lightning knowing that most of people killed ignored danger - like teenager in my area who kept playing soccer in forest preserve during thunderstorm or people sailing in spite of weather forecast and warnings.
For the rest of people, who take precautions, chances are practically none - meaning that chances for people ignoring danger (a few) are very high - much higher than 1 in 20,000. One could say that stupidity kills.

ILLOGICAL PEOPLE DIE FIRST. I cannot control cancer or nuclear attack but can greatly lower chances of being electrocuted by not playing in the park during thunderstorms or cutting ground from my electrical equipment that was designed with this ground as a protection. I would not recommend bypassing safety features and am very surprised that people without degree or any education in electrical engineering dare to make such recommendations. Do you also recommend to disconnect airbags? Just curious.

Stanwal - I don't know about PS Audio but suspect that they design their units such way that it doesn't need grounding (class II) but ground is still provided to reduce noise pickup. I suspect that it is the same principle with ground lift - otherwise it would be illegal to manufacture such thing. Every user guide has at least one page on safety precautions. You can also call PS Audio and ask them.

Their logic is a little fuzzy. They recommend to avoid disconnecting ground pin unless absolutely necessary and in next sentence they say removing this pin is dangerous? Maybe it is only 80% dangerous or perhaps it is dangerous on even Tuesdays and safe other times?

"Do not remove or bypass the ground pin on the end of the AC cord unless absolutely necessary
to reduce hum from ground loops of connected equipment. This may cause RFI (radio frequency
interference) to be induced into your playback setup. Removing or bypassing the ground pin on
any electrical component is potentially dangerous and should be avoided for safety reasons."

"To prevent electric shock, use a 3 prong,
grounded type power cable"