Add an IEC socket..any negative effects?

JohnT: I believe a chassis punch for IEC's, and IEC's too, are available from Parts Express. Others here may know of alternative sources? G13: I'm thinking he meant to NOT connect the ground (usually green wire inside the component) to the IEC's ground prong. May or may not be a good idea sound-wise; definitely not recommended from a safety point-of-view. You could even experiment by installing a toggle switch on rear chassis-panel, to make or lift that ground connection. But then again, that too could affect sonics vs. a probably-better hardwire ground connection.

IF the component has a 2 prong plug now, why would I want to connect a ground wire if I decide to add an IEC INPUT to the chassis? I'm no electician, but what I suspect would be ok is to connect the positive and negative to the IEC INPUT, dont connect the ground connector of the IEC input to anything, and use a regular power cord (one that has ground plug). If there's nothing in the chassis connected to ground, the ground line inside the power cord isnt doing anything, bad or good, right?? It would be just the same as using a high end power cord that only has 2 conductors and a shield, right? (besides the fact that there arent any of these) I suppose that I COULD ask my technician to ground it, but the way I see it, WHY??? EXPERTS, PLEASE COMMENT.

I am having mine done by an expert. However, If I were to do th ecutting, I think a Dremel, or some similar hand held cutting tool that is really easy to handle, would be good. As in most of my do it yourself projects, it sounds cheap and easy in theory, until you have to buy a piece of machinery to make a $0.05 cut. Snoogans.

There is a DIY article in Soundstage at www.sstage.com/maxdb/maxdb.htm I installed a male IEC in my DVD player using this article and I had no problems. I had a difficult time finding a quality male IEC. The female plugs are abundant but males arent. I ended up with a $2 plug from Michael Percy Audio. You can pick up the chassis nibbler at Radio Shack for about $10. Marc

G13 your perception is correct ("IF the component has a 2 prong plug now - what I suspect would be ok is to connect the positive and negative to the IEC INPUT, dont connect the ground connector of the IEC input to anything"). With an upgrade/shielded AC cord, the grounding at the Plug-end would still shield your cord up to the IEC-end. No ground is REQUIRED inside the component, but it may or may not sound better grounded (probably not). It will definitely be SAFER grounded, though it wasn't built that way. I wouldn;t lose any sleep over it though; the probability of an internal component failure causing the chassis to become AC hot is extremely low. It could happen, but even so the ground of interconnects would take the lethal voltage to another component which may be grounded.