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Ungrounded power cord: Will I die?

I'm always reading about the dangers of lifting ground from a power cord, especially in manufacturer manuals. Does this only apply to lifting ground from a grounded cord or just using an ungrounded cord, period? There are tons of devices in our homes that use ungrounded power cords (think wall wart). How is it possible that my house has not erupted into a ball of flames yet?

Anyway, I have a 2-prong power cord with a 3-prong IEC female end that came with my Luxman amp. I am getting the outboard power supply for my Calyx 24/192 DAC, but it requires an additional power cord. The Luxman cord sounds pretty good so I want to use that instead of spending another $500 to buy another one, which is +150% of the power supply itself!

What say ye?
eugene81
danoroo
239 posts
 
The results of this type of accident are not pretty. I witnessed such an event when I threw the hair dryer into the bath tub with my X-WIFE. I'm not stupid though, I unplugged all my audio gear and my flat screen before I did it.
swampwalker's avatar
swampwalker
5,138 posts
 
Danoroo- X as in divorced or X as in buried?
jea48
4,283 posts
 
Eugene81,

>http://db.audioasylum.com/mhtml/m.html?forum=amp&n=156311&highlight=Floating+Ground+Does+It+Cause+Damage?&r=&search_url=%2Fcgi%2Fsearch.mpl%3Fsession%3D20110701060759%26SelectForumvinyl%3Dvinyl%26SelectForumvinyl%3Dvinyl%26SelectForumvinyl%3Dvinyl%26SelectForumvinyl%3Dvinyl
hifihvn
943 posts
 
02-10-12: Eugene81
Can you tie a floating chassis to a grounded chassis with a speaker wire?

If your planning on tying two different metal component housing cabinets (i.e. preamp to CD player) together with a piece of speaker wire, you should be able to do it with a 14-16 gauge wire. If I'm wrong, jump in somebody. I've done this in the past.

Doing this can cause a ground loop, and result in hum in some cases.

Don't go inside any component, and tie any floating grounds to the chassis. This can be risky, and there may be a reason the designer did this inside.
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