Once again revealing the single greatest shortcoming of this website: no popcorn gif.
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The middle prong is an AC safety ground. It has exactly one purpose and that is to prevent electrocution. Whether or not a manufacturer chooses to have their equipment grounded is based on safety regulations and construction. It is most definitely not meant to be up to a cable maker. If your equipment requires a ground it should be used. Now, among grounded cables there is an additional features of a shielded or not, which provides protection from EMI/RFI noise to/from the power cable. I'm with the shielded camp. With so many digital and radio sources in the modern home I always pick shielded when possible. |
insearchofprat said: I’ve noticed that there are choices by different manufacturers for grounded or ungrounded power cords:Save everyone a lot time and post some website examples what you are referring to. For audio equipment that requires an EGC (Equipment Grounding Conductor) The power cord shall be a 3 wire grounding type. For audio equipment that is rated Class II the AC power wiring inside the equipment is double insulated. The IEC power inlet does not have an EGC prong. The IEC, power cord, and male plug are two wire only. Ungrounded. Class II Class II symbol A Class II or double insulated electrical appliance is one which has been designed in such a way that it does not require a safety connection to electrical earth (ground). The basic requirement is that no single failure can result in dangerous voltage becoming exposed so that it might cause an electric shock and that this is achieved without relying on an earthed metal casing. This is usually achieved at least in part by having at least two layers of insulating material between live parts and the user, or by using reinforced insulation. In Europe, a double insulated appliance must be labelled Class II or double insulated or bear the double insulation symbol (a square inside another square). Appliance classes - Wikipedia Now if some fly by night cable manufacturer is building a 3 wire grounding type power cord with the EGC lifted at the female IEC connector he is leaving himself wide open for a lawsuit, or worse, in the event someone gets electrocuted and it is proven his or her death was the cause of the EGC ground defeated power cord. Reputable cable manufacturers would never conceal a lifted EGC. . |
The middle prong is an AC safety ground. It has exactly one purpose and that is to prevent electrocution.So remember- use a ground. Or else end up exactly like this: https://youtu.be/2OB7BSXhReA?t=164 |
jea48 ... if some fly by night cable manufacturer is building a 3 wire grounding type power cord with the EGC lifted at the female IEC connector he is leaving himself wide open for a lawsuit, or worse ...I agree with you, but this offering from Pangea does essentially the same thing by offering a removable ground pin: " ... solid copper blades for the AC connections and upgrade to a screw-in/out solid copper ground pin. That will make the cable ... easy for customers to cancel any ground hum [by removing the ground pin]." This product has been on the market for years. |
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“Now what this company is doing is dangerous. The company is deliberately selling a product that could cause serious injury to the buying consumer. https://audioenvy.com/product/power-cord/ocean-elite-copy/ With our New Gen 6 release, the ground wire is disconnected from the female IEC. Improvements have been made for exceptional tonal balance.”@jea48, Please do not mislead folks with incomplete facts about Audio Envy Power Cords. There is a logical explanation behind ungrounded power cords. You may not agree with reasoning but it works. I have been using AE ungrounded power cords for over year and half. Absolutely no issues!!! As far as next guy comment, it’s up to the seller to disclose and educate why the wires are ungrounded. There is a running ad on USAM explaining exactly why the wires are ungrounded. https://www.usaudiomart.com/details/649645244-audio-envy-ocean-elite-2p-power-cords-various-lengths/ Here is the complete explanation of why to use ungrounded power cords. Excepts from Audio Envy website: With our New Gen 6 release, the ground wire is disconnected from the female IEC. Improvements have been made for exceptional tonal balance. WHY? Based upon measurements and listening tests; I have recommended to people, to ground only one piece of their interconnected equipment. The interconnects will provide static dissipation through the secondary ground connection & nuetral. They often look at me in extreme terror. Wikipedia agrees… Wiki; A ground loop is the result of careless or inappropriate design or interconnection of electrical equipment that results in there being multiple paths to ground where this is not required, so a complete loop is formed. In the simplest case, two items of equipment, A and B, are each connected to a wall socket by a 3 conductor cable, containing a protective ground conductor. This becomes a problem when a interconnect cable is connected between A and B, to pass data or audio signals. The shield of the data cable is typically connected to the grounded equipment chassis of both A and B. There is now a ground loop. How can you benefit from this? Purchase the Ocean Elite P3 cord to hook to your preamp or integrated receiver…All other power cords in the system, such as source equipment, dacs, amplifiers, subwoofers,etc. should all use ocean Elite P2. This will direct ground your system, removing hum and reduce harmonic distortion from your system. We’ve seen multi thousand dollar power conditioners that do not fix or address this issue. The issues of ground loops are often greater then the dirtiness of the actual AC power!
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The US still has some millions of homes built back before the extra redundant earth ground became code. All those homes use power cords, and everything else, with no extra redundant earth ground. Just like with all those homes, there's a slew of power cords that don't have the extra redundant earth ground and people are using them perfectly fine. I've got two of them going to my Dayton sub amps. The OP asked, "Why, and do they sound different?" Not one reply so far addresses these questions. When the answer is obviously they do it precisely because it sounds different- and they like that sound. Instead we get "It has exactly one purpose and that is to prevent electrocution." And a million variations on that theme. We all use electricity every day. Yet no one seems to really understand it. So we get all this mindless recitation, repeating stuff we heard or read somewhere. Once upon a time. All of which proves my first post. If we can't get a popcorn gif can we at least get a popcorn emoji? 🍿 No not that one. Was thinking more Putin eating popcorn. |
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I have 1 thing to add to this discussion. My amp will HUM loudly with a ground pin. Over 10 yrs I have tried everything to get around this problem, but, the only answer is to lift the ground pin. I have had this same problem with other amps as well. Probably has something to do with my electrical grid, but there it is. |
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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
As an example - On my current system
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 |
