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Worthwhile $5 Tweak

A recent thread at Audioasylum about an $800 grounding system being marketed at Audiogon got a response from an inmate there suggesting that making a clean and secure ground connection was a worthwhile thing to do. While I cannot comment on the system being marketed, I can tell you that checking the ground in my 40 year old house was a very worthwhile thing to do. An old clamp, all rusted up, attached the ground wire to my main waterline. Bought a new brass or bronze clamp for $4 Cnd. (the cheapies are about $1-looked at them and they appear to be the same as the corroded one I had), gave the water pipe a sand and clipped and stripped the ground wires down and reconnected. A very worthwhile improvement to sound quality for under $5-highly recommended if you are in an older (or maybe even newer property) without dedicated circuits, grounds etc.
hdm

Showing 2 responses by hdm

hdm OP
1,056 posts
 
Stehno: I am actually in agreement with you on the floating/disconnecting of grounds. I run my system off one grounded receptacle, with two grounded power conditioners plugged into that receptacle. One conditioner is dedicated totally to my integrated amplifier which has the ground floated as a result of me removing the ground on its male plug. I found though that my DVD player (which has only a two prong plug) sounds and looks slightly better with the chassis grounded (I tried this on the suggestion of a power cord manufacturer who posts at Audioasylum) directly to the receptacle. Perhaps I should disconnect the ground on the outlet that powers the stereo and see what happens.

The interesting thing is that the TV (which is on a different circuit, and also grounded receptacle) seems to be offering a slightly improved picture even though it is also a non-grounded, or internally grounded piece. My thought is that the improved ground connection at least improves things in some minor way by improving the electrical system's ability to dump off the noise inherent in the ground of the total system more effectively, thus limiting garbage getting back into the live line. But I concur with you that, in general, the ground is the source of a lot of garbage and sonic degradation.
hdm OP
1,056 posts
 
Ed: I am reasonably sure that the Foundations that Stehno uses come from the factory with the ground disabled (as the manufacturer figures they sound better this way) with the ability to reverse this. Stehno, obviously will be able to shed more light on this. It is interesting to note that a number of aftermarket cords do in fact come with the grounds disabled (although many of the purchasers of these cords may be unaware of this) or the ability to disable the ground for improved sound quality.
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