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Cheap grounding solution

By chance I happened on a good use for disused power cords: Disconnect live and neutral leads at the power plug and connect them all to ground. Take off the IEC connector and terminate all to a single spade connector. On your DAC or preamp connect spade to grounding post or casing and insert power plags into a switched of mains socket, ideally on a different circuit. Alternatively terminate with RCAplug not connecting the centre pin and use spare RCA input on Pre or DAC I think you‘ll be pleasantly surprised about the increase in blackness, depth and height of soundstage as well as increased transparency. Total cost: zip squad diddely
antigrunge2
jea48
4,323 posts
 


By chance I happened on a good use for disused power cords: Disconnect live and neutral leads at the power plug and connect them all to ground. Take off the IEC connector and terminate all to a single spade connector. On your DAC or preamp connect spade to grounding post or casing and insert power plags into a switched of mains socket, ideally on a different circuit.
Sure sounds like the EGC pin of the power cord plug is connected to the EGC contact of the receptacle. (EGC is NOT lifted at the wall switched receptacle by the switch).


Alternatively terminate with RCAplug not connecting the centre pin and use spare RCA input on Pre or DAC
Other end of power cord conductors are connected the outer ground of the RCA plug.

ideally on a different circuit.
Sure sounds like a recipe for a ground loop.

antigrunge2 OP532 posts

06-14-2021
9:16am

I am obviously not in any way a technical expert but it seems similar devices (Gutwire) are positively reviewed by the likes of audiobacon, audiophileman and 6moons and sold by the CableCo. Seems another religious war is in the making.
@ antigrunge2 

Would you please post a Link to a Website for the Ground.....
.

antigrunge2 OP
1,367 posts
 
Here you go: https://audiobacon.net/2017/12/09/gutwire-perfect-ultimate-ground-cables-review/
pauly
1,012 posts
 
I sort of do that already. I run off battery, and the battery/inverter does not have ground. The AC from my inverter goes into my balanced transformers. In order for my balanced transformers to work, I'm grounding them off a wall plug. 

I have been using regular 14 ga hookup wire and not a shielded cable as your post suggests. I'll grab one of my extension cables and see how well it works off a different breaker. I'm a little hesitant to hack up one of my good cables. 


antigrunge2 OP
1,367 posts
 
It all depends on how dirty or clean your local environment is: I live near two schools with 1500 pupils in the centre of London and get RFI/EMI by the boat load. Using unshielded cables anywhere near the power supply simply asks for ingress of such…
pauly
1,012 posts
 
If the overriding concern is EMI/RFI shielding, a polyethylene sleeve or wrap shielding an extension cord would a good option.

Any shielding that is grounded would simply transfer the noise on the shield to the ground conductor and be ineffective. Any proprietary design that introduces a capacitance across the conductors would also not be of value.

A "good" power cable would not necessarily be the optimal choice for this application, as they often have grounded shielding. 
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