really? .89c ground lifters?

There is absolutely no excuse for any need to lift grounds. All properly designed equipment should be quiet without this VERY serious safety violation.

Absolutely never lift grounds. You are taking out of action the method used to protect you. If you have hum or noise, then you should investigate each unit individually until you isolate which piece of equipment is causing the ground loop or hum and fix it. Lifting the ground may mask the ground loop or hum problem, but you have now introduced a potential for serious injury or death. No joke! This is the same logic as taking a radio or hair dryer into the bath tub. Everything is fine until is slips out of your hand and falls into the water, then it is too late. You are asking for trouble lifting grounds. Find the problem and fix it. Lifting grounds does not fix the problem. There are many posts here that explain the method for isolating which component is causing the problem.

Enjoy, but do so safely and use common sense.

The way it is done in pro-audio situations is to make sure the heart of the system (in a pro audio system: the mixer, in a home system: the preamp) is the only thing that is grounded. Otherwise there is a good likelihood of a ground loop between the amp and preamp.

The concern is that you could get into some serious shock hazard, which is why so many advocate not to do it. And it is true that if the equipment is properly designed, you won't have any serious ground loops to begin with.

The caveat is 'properly designed'. I've seen about 10 different ways of grounding used in various brands of equipment and some methods work a lot better than others.

Add to that the fact that buzz is a rather crude manifestation of a ground loop, IOW you can have a ground loop and no buzz, just a loss of detail and an increase in background noise. So the more adventurous audiophiles may take things like this into their own hands- Albert is a great example of that.

So if you are going to be lifting grounds, I agree with Albert. Just keep in mind that there is the potential of shock (no pun intended), but personally I have never seen this actually manifest (I've done this a lot in my own system) in over 30 years. All it takes is once though! So although it may help, its not recommended. So if you attempt something like this, just keep in mind you are at your own risk.

Why any manufacture of audio equipment today would still be designing and building their audio equipment using the old out dated AC safety equipment type of grounding beats me.

Double insulated type AC power wiring in their equipment would not cost that much more to produce.

I must assume from some that have posted here no one that lives in an older home that has only 2 wire receptacle outlets, (no equipment grounding conductor), has audio equipment that has three wire plugs.

UL should require all manufactures to build their audio equipment with double insulated power wiring or the manufacture would not get the UL label.

I must assume from some that have posted here no one that lives in an older home that has only 2 wire receptacle outlets, (no equipment grounding conductor), has audio equipment that has three wire plugs.

My home was two prong plug when I moved in and never had a noise problem. Over the years as my AC was upgraded and the three prong plugs of audio gear were actually connected to ground, I began to have problems.

When I say problems, realize that having done photography for various audio manufacturers and reviewed equipment for PFO as well as my audio groups testing, I've had a heck of a lot of equipment connected here.

Ralph is right that grounds are done many different ways on various pieces of audio gear and sometimes all you need do is change preamp or amps and the problem pops up.

No one has mentioned electrical phase. Many stereo systems are connected to both phases (or sides of the supply transformer outside) with ground shared. Good way to get hum and very difficult to get rid of.

Again, equipment dependant. I'm sure some of you are connected this way and have zero problems.