I think the alternative to such boxes is having a solid rod planted deep in the ground outside of your house with a ground wire running to a single grounding point for all of your gear. Why this is important, I don't know. But, I do know it does affect how a system sounds.
I heard a demonstration of the Nordost grounding system. It consisted of such a box to which all components are connected via a run of wire from an unused input to the grounding box. Nordost supplied wires with all sorts of alternative connector plugs to fit that unused input (RCA, XLR, BNC, etc.). With the grounding installed, the biggest change in sound was to the imaging of the system -instruments and vocalist seemed to float more freely in space and seemed to be actually present in the room. The decay of notes also seemed to be more obvious and natural sounding instead of sounding cut off. I liked what I heard.
I did not get to hear it in my own system and did not ask for an in-home demonstration because my amplifier does not have an unused input. I was told that a chassis grounding point was NOT an alternative to an unused input for this grounding scheme.
I heard a demonstration of the Nordost grounding system. It consisted of such a box to which all components are connected via a run of wire from an unused input to the grounding box. Nordost supplied wires with all sorts of alternative connector plugs to fit that unused input (RCA, XLR, BNC, etc.). With the grounding installed, the biggest change in sound was to the imaging of the system -instruments and vocalist seemed to float more freely in space and seemed to be actually present in the room. The decay of notes also seemed to be more obvious and natural sounding instead of sounding cut off. I liked what I heard.
I did not get to hear it in my own system and did not ask for an in-home demonstration because my amplifier does not have an unused input. I was told that a chassis grounding point was NOT an alternative to an unused input for this grounding scheme.