...Grounded or Ungrounded Power Cords...


Hello to all...

I've noticed that there are choices by different manufacturers for grounded or ungrounded power cords: 

Why would this be important?

With exactly same construction - do they sound different?
insearchofprat
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@odysseebooks - A question - does your system contain components that came with both 2 pin plugs and three pin plugs on the stock power cables?

Over the years I have oswned many Two-pin (or double insulated) components

More often than not they were "responsible" for unwanted hum from my amp, which has a three pin plug

My solution (rightly or wrongly) is to ground the NEUTRAL SIDE ONLY of an unused input socket on the AMP to a single ground point

  • E.G. I simply use a piece of wire attached to the neutral side of an RCA jack at one end and connect the other end to the ground pin of a mains plug and plug it into a GROUNDED mains outlet
    • NOTE if your amp has a "grounding terminal" (e.g. for turntable grounding) that can also be used in place of the Mains plug

As an example - On my current system

  • I have
    • a bluesound Node 2 (2 pin plug) streamer
    • a Simaudio Moon (3 pin plug) Phono stage
    • a Bryston B135 integrated amp (3 pin plug)
  • There is NO HUM when both sources are connected to the amp
    • because the phono stage is a "grounded component" with a three pin plug
  • if I disconnct the phono stage but leave the Node 2 connected it causes the amp to hum
  • attaching a grounding lead as described above eliminates the hum

I searched for several years and tried many solutions for this type of hum and the grounding lead is the only thing that worked

I would certainly NOT consider a power cable with a removeable ground pin. The pin is there for a very important reason - TO SAVE LIVES

Regards - Steve