component grounding

Electronic engineer here. I was tinkering with a tube (valve) amp when 14 years old and got a bad shock. My father (electrical engineer) was an expert witness for some investigations into death by electrocution.

I recommend taking every step necessary to avoid having a mains electric shock. On this side of the Atlantic, mains is 230V. Building standards (UK) require that gas and water pipework is earth-bonded where exposed and all sockets to be protected by RCDs.

One of the most cost effective sound improvements I've made to my system was using a two to three prong cheater plug on my amp and dac.  I previously lived for thirty years in a house that only had two prong reciprocals.  I'm still here.  On your skill saw a three prong plug is important on your stereo it can be detrimental to your sound with very little risk. YMMV 😗

Safety is of prime importance, but you are not getting the best from your audio if it does not have a grounding system.

In the UK, we have 230V, but for the last 50 Years it’s been mandatory to use the 3 prong plug with an internal fuse, most appliances are supplied with an IEC Plug on the equipment end & a moulded fuseable plug on the other, these leads shouldn’t be no more than a meter (3 feet) long, all tv’s & similar equipment are usually fitted with a figure 8 cable with 2 conductors & a 3 prong fuseable plug, so potentially dangerous. I have some US gear here Audio Research which is supplied with a UK 🇬🇧 Compatible Lead of really good quality, I also have a 120V Theta Dac, which is supplied with a three prong 🇺🇸 lead, but equipment is fused, I now live in France which has 3 prong 230V receptacles, but not fused, but everything has to have breakers on both + & -, no more than 3 sockets on each power line, there appear to be no cases where anyone has died in either case, but I am surprised. You see on social media sites that in Countries such as India, there appears to be plenty of cases where people have been zapped to Death.

Hello,

As said above a lot of people float the ground. It prevents noise from ground loop hum especially on single ended equipment. Also, by having the ground plug only connected to the wall and not the component provides some type of RFI/ EMI protection. I bought a Nordost Purple Flare figure 8 power cord for my BlueSound Node 2i. I bought a cheater that turns a three prong EIc into a figure 8. I then plugged in my Nordost Blue Heaven which is grounded. Their was a definite improvement over the sound. At a Nordost/ Ayre/ Kef show at my local audio store I asked the Nordost rep about it. He said the cables are the same except for the ground wire and the figure 8 end. I tried it several times and had the sam sound improvement each time. I think Paul at PS Audio has talked about only connecting the ground or shield cable on the starting side. The interesting thing is the ungrounded Nordost Purple Flare still uses a three prong plug on the wall side even though their is no ground wire in the sheath. So not using the ground but using it as a shield.