Puritan PSM 156 connecting Puritan Grounding Products?

Why not use the ground master city.  It just plugs into your outlet and connects to the PMS 156.  It was intended to be used without an outside grounding rod.

“My initial thoughts are the GroundMaster, coupled with the GoundMaster City (no inclination to attempt driving an 8ft copper rod through my garden soil).”

OP, do you mean the RouteMaster coupled with the GroundMaster City? I have that combo, but not the PSM156. I believe that you can connect the PSM156 to the RouteMaster, along with your other components. From what I understand, however, there may be some benefits to running a separate GroundMaster City just for the PSM156. Best to check with your dealer, or PAL directly.

Conduct the chase with a professional.  I made the complete run with someone smarter than me, Tom at Big Ear Stereo in Tempe.  He gave great insight into all of the Puritan products and the why and how of each one.  I even grounded all of my components to include my ATC towers (active).

Yeah, it's a rabbit hole, but there is a very nice bright carrot at the end.  Each piece added, or in this case subtracted, for improvement of the system.

He even screamed at me, correctly so, about my Netgear meta data transfer. Anything to clear frequency nasties from the chain.  I got rid of it.

My initial thoughts are the GroundMaster, coupled with the GoundMaster City (no inclination to attempt driving an 8ft copper rod through my garden soil).

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I do not have any personal experience with Puritan PSM Grounding products. I do have experience, as well knowledge, with the use of dedicated, isolated, earth driven ground rods though. They do not do what, some say, they are said to do...

Does the NEC, (National Electrical Code), allow them? Yes...

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250.54 Auxiliary Grounding Electrodes.

One or more grounding electrodes shall be permitted to be connected to
the equipment grounding conductors specified in 250.118 and shall not be required to comply with the electrode bonding requirements of 250.50 or 250.53(C) or the resistance requirements of 250.53(A)(2) Exception, but the earth shall not used as an effective ground-fault current path as specified in 250.4(B)(4).

There is no requirement for the size of the ground wire used from the ground rod to the connection of the branch circuit EGC, (Equipment Grounding Conductor). Example a #24awg copper wire could be used.

Exception, but the earth shall not used as an effective ground-fault current path as specified in 250.4(B)(4). Therein, the branch circuit EGC cannot be lifted, disconnected..

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Puritan Audio Laboratories Ground Master

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2G8-Z3BMDcw

In the first part of the video the guy has no idea what he is talking about. EMI is not diverted, drained, to Mother Earth. The Earth does not possess some magical mystical that will suck nasties from an audio system. Circuits work in loops. If EMI is connected to the earth there must be a current path for it to return to the source.

Another problem with the guy’s explanation, theory. A ground rod is not directional. It’s a two way street... In other words the rod does not prevent EMI traveling in the earth from entering through the rod and dump EMI onto the audio equipment chassis, metal enclosure. There’s a very good chance it will.

A dedicated, isolated, ground rod is also a good path for a high voltage lightning transient, caused by a near by lightning strike to earth, to enter through the rod and fry audio equipment as it finds its way back to Earth on the branch circuit EGC as well neutral conductor, (The high voltage transient will bounce around inside a piece of audio equipment jumping across to the neutral conductor), at the service equipment where the service neutral and EGC are bonded together and then connected to Mother Earth. And remember it is a two way street.

My advice would be to use the GoundMaster City...

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Grounding Myths

From Henry W. Ott’s book, "Electromagnetic Compatibility Engineering"

3.1.7 Grounding Myths

More myths exist relating to the field of grounding than any other area of electrical engineering. The more common of these are as follows:

1. The earth is a low-impedance path for ground current. False, the impedance of the earth is orders of magnitude greater than the impedance of a copper conductor.

2. The earth is an equipotential. False, this is clearly not true by the result of (1 above).

3. The impedance of a conductor is determined by its resistance. False, what happened to the concept of inductive reactance?

4. To operate with low noise, a circuit or system must be connected to an earth ground. False, because airplanes, satellites, cars and battery powered laptop computers all operate fine without a ground connection. As a mater of fact, an earth ground is more likely to be the cause of noise problem. More electronic system noise problems are resolved by removing (or isolating) a circuit from earth ground than by connecting it to earth ground.

5. To reduce noise, an electronic system should be connected to a separate “quiet ground” by using a separate, isolated ground rod. False, in addition to being untrue, this approach is dangerous and violates the requirements of the NEC (electrical code/rules).

6. An earth ground is unidirectional, with current only flowing into the ground. False, because current must flow in loops, any current that flows into the ground must also flow out of the ground somewhere else.

7. An isolated AC power receptacle is not grounded. False, the term “isolated” refers only to the method by which a receptacle is grounded, not if it is grounded.

8. A system designer can name ground conductors by the type of the current that they should carry (i.e., signal, power, lightning, digital, analog, quiet, noisy, etc.), and the electrons will comply and only flow in the appropriately designated conductors. Obviously false."

Henry W. Ott

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Read the writings, White Papers, on Earth grounding by,

Henry W Ott

Ralph Morrison

Bill Whitlock

Neil A Muncy

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