Should I ground my Tice Powerblock / Titan Combo?


I found out that the Tice PowerBlock / Titan Combo isn't grounded at the input power cord end... Should I ground it? Any pros and cons?
infinity_audio
As of 1962 the NEC required that new 120-volt household receptacle outlets, for general purpose use, be both grounded and polarized.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Electrical_Code

If the Tice Powerblock / Titan Combo is an isolation transformer and is not connected to the equipment ground of the premises then the neutral of the output, secondary winding, of the transformer is floating and could be hazardous to your health....

Of course who knows if the builder of the unit even connected one of the secondary leads of the transformer to the equipment ground inside the unit making it the neutral conductor, "The Grounded Conductor".

As I said earlier the unit is not UL and or CSA listed.
Jim is correct.

People certainly have been killed for lack of a ground.

I will just add a couple of bits of information and you can do what you will with them Kingsley.

There certainly are horror stories of what has happened with ungrounded equipment. And therefore you might consider yourself at great risk and decide to ground your system. So I will address that.

I mentioned that I thought I recalled George recommending re-establishing a ground. I did find that in a service bulletin. But before that.

Jim, a floating ground is exactly what George was after. I have two pieces of Tice Audio Products, Inc. literature. They look pretty much identical with a couple of exceptions. What I believe is the earlier piece has Ronkonkoma, NY on Pond Road as their location.

One of the 8 bullet points under Power Block Features list "6 - 15 AMP nylon faced grounded outlets". And there are only 6 bullet points under Inside The Power Block Transformer.

What I believe is the later piece of literature with Shorewood Lane in NY as the address (but prior to Service Bulletin #5, April 1991 I believe) omits the word "grounded" when referring to the outlets. And it has 7 bullet points under the "Inside the PB Trans". The seventh bullet point being "Floating ground system Isolates your equipment from ground noise".

OK, now to service bulletin #5. Because of "Static electric buildup in digital processors and players.." and the damage that can occur. The service bulletin instructs one to take the green wire that is tie wrapped and cut the tie wrap.

Connect the green wire to the ground terminal of "one" of the outlets. I assume, although it is not stated, that one should plug the digital into that outlet.

However, it really does not matter which piece of equipment (except for sonic purposes) is plugged into the grounded outlet, as long as that piece has a three prong grounded plug. All the rest of the system will be grounded through the interconnects to that piece. Of course this does away with the "floating ground". But at least it does not re-establish the multiple ground loops that were manufactured into the first several Power Blocks.

When the first Power Blocks left the factory they did not have the provision for connecting the Titan. The Titan connection pigtail was a retrofit. I assume George figured out two or three things; 1) the added reserve of an additional huge transformer sounded even better, 2) if the pigtail was already there it made for an easier up sell of the addition of a Titan, and 3) there wasn't a good reason not to get an additional $1,100 for one more transformer per customer, since the R & D was already done.

Kingsley. If you live in a house, and not an apartment, I would recommend the following

1) Do not connect the ground wire on the Power Block.
2) Establish a new ground, ideally with a dedicated ground rod, close to your system.
3) Ground just one piece of your system. Generally the preamp sounds best.

That being said YMMV (your mileage may vary). So, once you have established a good ground get a bunch of "cheater" plugs and one by one try each individual piece as the "master ground". You can also compare that to the floating ground of the Tice, since you have not connect any green wires there.

One combination will sound considerable better. Better? Yes, less background hash, better image, more focus, depth, width, sweeter, more relaxed, yada, yada, yada.

When I was chasing down the ground loops (no hum - just not allowing the system to function at its best), I entirely missed my speakers (Martin Logan Prodigy). Of course there was a ground on EACH speaker, connected back to the system by way of the speaker wires.

Try the cheater/lifted grounds experiment. Many who have, have been blown away at what they were missing. If you don't hear any difference, then just ground everything, don't become neurotic about it, and just enjoy your music.

But you just might get a new level of enjoyment from your system.

Bruce
Oh yea, I forgot.

Once you decided which piece will be the master ground, lift the ground on all the rest of the equipment and get rid of the cheaters.

Bruce
Jim, a floating ground is exactly what George was after.

Bruce,

The bigger problem is the floating 120Vac output of the transformer. Both leads of the secondary are hot without a true ground reference. For safety the output of the transformer,(if single ended), then one leg must be earth connected. (Balanced the center tap must be grounded). And because the transformer is a separately derived power system fed from the premises main grounded power system one leg of the secondary of the transformer must be connected to the main grounding system of the premises. If the unit plugs into a receptacle, the equipment ground of the receptacle branch circuit is used.

Also at the transformer unit where the output power receptacle/s are located, somewhere in the mix of things, the equipment ground contact of the receptacle/s must also be connected to the grounded leg of the output of the transformer and the equipment ground of the power cord that feeds the transformer. Star grounding.....

Just a quick example what could happen with a 120V floating power system. Say for what ever reason one of the lines feeding a piece of equipment, connected to the floating power source, was to short to the metal case. Nothing would happen right? No fuse would blow. The user of the equipment wouldn't know... No big problem right?

But what if for some reason another piece of equipment also experienced the same problem where the hot wire shorted to the case.... But this time it was the opposite hot wire from the floating 120V power source. Still no fuse will blow... The user will not know a problem may exist.... Only way the user will know if there is a problem if he touches both pieces of equipment at the same time... A 120Vac difference of potential from one to the other....

Just to throw another monkey wrench into the mix.... If the above example in my last post were to happen there is a good chance equipment could be damaged. A lot of audio equipment designer/manufactures connect the signal ground to the chassis/case of the equipment. If the faulted equipment is connected together by ICs then a short circuit will exist hopefully causing fuses within the equipment to blow.... Hopefully before any damage to the electronics of the audio equipment.