Grounding

It appears that the only thing i did was ground my porch railing into the Denon.
11-07-14: Roscoe50

Actually you may have provided a great path for lightning to fry your audio equipment.

If the apartment building is constructed of poured concrete a lot of steel rebar was used in the construction. If the railing is set in the concrete the railing is indeed earth grounded. That does not mean there is not a difference of potential, voltage, between the railing and the equipment ground of the power feeding your apartment.

Had any of your other equipment used a three wire power cord and plug plugged into a receptacle with an equipment ground there is a good chance you would have experienced a ground loop hum.

http://forums.mikeholt.com/showthread.php?t=119872

I thought of the lightening part today myself.

I will double check but i am pretty sure all my power cord are 2 prong plugged into a hardware store voltage protector that does have the 3 prongs going into the wall socket.

It will take another few days before i can figure out if my equip sounds diff withe the thing pulled off....

Update--- it doesn't seem any different. R