OCD HI-Fi Guy on Audio Grounding

[Music1969]

Thoughts? Is ANY of this technically accurate ?

 

[sam_adams]

Didn't watch the vid, but the below are as accurate as it gets on the subject:

Bill Whitlock - Interconnection of Balanced and Unbalanced Equipment - Jensen AN-003

Bill Whitlock - Hum And Buzz In Unbalanced Interconnect Systems - Jensen AN-004

Bill Whitlock - An Overview of Audio System Grounding and Interfacing - Indy-AES-2012

Bill Whitlock - The Myth and Mystery of Analog Signal Interfaces - AES Detroit -2021

Bill Whitlock - Understanding, Finding, And Eliminating Ground Loops - CEDIA Class EST016

Bill Whitlock - Hum Buzz and Ground Loops - New Insights Into An Old Problem AES Toronto 2010

 

[Deleted member 48726]

It would be nice if people would stop these threads containing a headline and a link. It looks more like a click-bait hunt and in search of discussion without having an opinion on the matter. Why the **** don't you at least sum up the contents of the video?

I don't want to give clicks to YouTubers that don't deserve it. We all should be way more selective.

 

[JSmith]

Transcript (warning, wall of unformatted text);

hey everybody what is up good morning it's the morning Mikey show the the morning audio show with Mikey and um I'm gonna do a quick one this morning this morning I was gone at nine o'clock I was down in deat uh uh part of Georgia it's called decar but I'm doing the French accent look what happened what is that you guys that's the Mikey Pony Samson's locks came off the back now I got that little short little thing um and uh yeah man it was just this this will be a little bit better I can still slick it back anyways so this will go to uh cancer patients that need wigs it is um 10 inches long which is at least what we need Once you pull the curls out it gets pretty long anyways okay so getting to it I'm going to do my my quick daily thing um uh today I'm talking about audio grounding grounding what what's the deal with this grounding you hear all sorts of crap about grounding and grounding this and grounding that and spending tons of money on on on on grounding uh devices uh well grounding is is is important right you know okay so grounding you otherwise known as Earth okay so what do what does grounding mean grounding is connecting your electricity to planet Earth okay um that is what it is um there are couple different reasons for doing that the main reason is to drain away sporus current just think of it that way when you need to dump current that's garbage current it's running around whether it's from lightning whether it's from over voltage whether it's from a short circuit whether it's from whatever if all of a sudden there's current that needs to be dumped and gotten rid of because it's either dangerous or noisy you dump it to Earth you drop it into a rod that goes into the Earth and it dissappear Ates it into the ground or the the Earth there are two different kinds two very distinct different types of grounding on audio gear one of them is safety ground safety ground is see I will look I feel like Mr Rogers here I thought I had all those things uh where' they all go ah I lost them I should have my little bag of tricks here oh here it is okay so safety ground is this the third prong okay that thing right there the number three this one right right in the middle that's safety ground safety ground is on all your components it's on all your power cords and that is intended so if something short circuits inside the piece of audio gear uh that it will dump any dangerous ground or I'm sorry any dangerous current or electricity to the ground so that you don't get electrocuted so the third pin is on here so you don't get electrocuted so typically on the back side here you're going to see a wire come out and it moves about an inch over and it goes right to uh the chassis of the gear and on a screw so that means uh if if if if the the screw uh the the chassis becomes energized with the short something causes current to go into the metal chassis through that screw it'll come back into here and it'll come out this little third pin and it'll go down your cable it'll go into your house wiring ground and it'll go outside the house and into the Earth okay so that's what that's for this is safety ground there is another ground another ground is called uh signal ground now let's see if I can make this easy for you to see well if you look on this board this is a ground plane this this lighter part okay and then this over here this these are grounds okay this is signal ground okay and then uh or however you know um I'm not sure if I have that exactly right it's either it's one of the other it's either the darker the light okay there's ground planes on it that's signal ground so that when you have an RCA output like this on the back of your gear this little ring around here is signal ground this is this goes to that the the the big ground planes on the the the chassis signal ground is your zero voltage reference for making your amplitude Okay that just means for making the signal that goes like this when it goes and it goes up like that um there's a if you look at a graph and we take horizontal lines when that thing goes up there's different levels of how far up it goes that's your amplitude how far far up how down whatever okay you need to have a zero voltage reference to for for to go along with your signal so you've got signal and you've got ground signal is the center the center pin so that center pin is signal the outside is ground on a circuit board there's the signal makes differences in volt variations and voltage just like that too so that Z is the high frequency is the low frequency right so More Voltage more oomph you know higher amplitude Okay um that's how you make your sound you variate you you you you you um pulse or modulate that uh and and I may be this is for the sake Engineers don't critique this right now I'm trying to make it understandable for everybody and and it it's close enough okay so you modulate that that's how you get your sound right you modulate voltage you know you know make it you know okay so you need to have a zero reference to make to know exactly how high because it's going to it it needs to have a zero reference because the zero is the middle of the line right if you have um now okay so that needs to be dead nuts zero on your on on on every this is an amplifier board okay so on this amp board uh when it's making its amplitude you need to have a zero volt reference on the ground planes or or these ground planes whatever whichever one's ground this is probably signal and and I think the dark one is probably the ground plane because it's bigger yeah that is it um and so um you need to have zero now every single power supply has something called leakage current that means that the power supply board it's another board that that we have that makes the power it leaks a little current okay and that current needs to be drained off so that leakage current is supposed to go here right but this signal ground that is on here uh people tie to the chassis ground a lot of times and I can't tell if this one has but you see how there's that metal ring around this screw hole so if that is connected to the ground plane then the ground plane is connected to the chassis through these little things called standoffs which are the these little metal things that hold it up right they look like little octagon things that you can they're they're nuts and that is how the ground plane gets connected to the chassis this third pin is also connected to the chassis okay that's so that your signal ground can be connected to chassis and the spous small currents that come out of the power supply can drain out of here too the problem is when you drain that little the leakage current comes off the power supply and you put it to chassis it can come back that that current can come back into here and get onto the board so you can jack with your signal ground by connecting it to safety ground also we all know that safety ground can bring induced noise noise from the outside can come up the ground leg and into the component from other components if you plug in another piece a gear that's a high frequency a switching mode power supply or something like that that not filtered well it can it can dump uh spous nose noise back onto the ground that can come up into your gear through this and then go through the the the standoff and get onto your signal uh your signal ground that's why it's so important to get rid of the the um the why all these elaborate grounding things exist because what they do is they will go on the the outside and it will be a little teeny metal ring that you'll stick on the outside of your RCA and then it will go down to a grounding thing and it will enhance your signal ground it will help to get that any noise that comes back it will help just drain it off there in some gear in some Nelson pass designs and some other gear I've seen you will see signal ground on the back of the gear super cool and and rare that means that company has gone through the trouble of ice isolating signal ground from the chassis ground that is in my opinion every piece of gear should have that they should all be isolated from one another so that they don't mix so that you don't pollute your signal ground with your safety ground that is highly unlikely to happen because it's too much work people aren't going to go through that it's too much work and it's too Tweaky but it is the kickass way to do things could you go into your own gear and isolate every one of these with rubber isolators and plastic screws and all this or put it on wood blocks or whatever and you could you could go in and mod your gear and isolate signal from safety if you wanted to you could do it now I don't recommend anybody does that but these are the kind of things that when I was going down the squirrel hole I would do stuff like that just to see if it made a difference many times it does but in the end it's usually not worth the headache that it goes through and then you get sometimes you can compromise uh protection of Circ and things like that where you know if you don't know what you're doing you can you can break your gear burn your gear up so in a nutshell there is safety ground and there is signal ground and you under you you I'm I'm painting the picture that they're two different things uh and they're best isolated some gear does isolate them many of it doesn't 99% of it does not isolate signal from safety ground that is why these extra signal ground things that go on to our CA that go down that's why they exist to enhance the signal ground uh uh uh remaining at a at at a zero we want that ground at zero we don't want microvolts usually it's molts that are on there just a little bit of current but it's enough to throw off the amplitude so it's not absolutely correct and if it has highfrequency noise on that current then it's even worse you know then then then we're adding noise so that is the whole schlam in a nutshell about grounding yes it is totally important yes there are two different types of signal there's signal and there's safety ground and yes ground enhancements do work do does it require a ton of extra dough for the signal acquir no when you're spending 102,000 on ground boxes it's just another thing that we do in Hi-Fi that uh we can capitalize on let's put it that way uh you could take a little teeny wire and you could wrap it around here and then you could take it and run it to your wall to the unused socket and put it in that third hole pin and you'd have the same thing when we make grounding devices we just elaborate that process and make it much easier for you to hook up so that's it hope you guys enjoyed the morning audio show with Mikey I know it's afternoon but I had to get my hair chopped and uh thanks for joining come again I'll see you tomorrow and remember Wednesday nights are the live stream and go to 11 St also I almost forgot to do this subscribe to the channel give me your thumbs up and uh show me your support I appreciate it go to 11 sto.com okay elo.com and you'll be able to sell your used gear for free uh and you'll be able to as buyers you'll be able to buy from a lot of us big dogs that really don't care about getting the money out of our used stuff I'm looking around because I'm looking for used stuff to show you something uh we will sell it for peanuts we just wanted to go to a good home we don't really care we don't need the money necessarily but it's doing us no good sitting there so why not sell it to a young blood or or or a young audio file or an audio file that's on a tighter budget and uh let somebody else benefit that's really into the music so that happens on the 11 stereo forums Under The Trading Post so go there but anyways thanks for joining and I hope you guys have a happy holiday this is the morning of December 22nd and uh I will see you

JSmith

 

[Dimitri]

Many. Anyone can make youtube videos. (probably not the thought you were looking for )

Of all you watched what worries you the most ?

 

[Deleted member 48726]

Transcript (warning, wall of unformatted text);




JSmith

I appreciate the effort. Really. But we all know how many talking heads can go on for thirty minutes about something that could've been summed up in two.

 

[sam_adams]

Transcript (warning, wall of unformatted text);

I stopped reading after the first line as I was afraid that it would cause me to have a stroke. I'm glad that I didn't watch the vid.

 

[Rednaxela]

Transcript (warning, wall of unformatted text);




JSmith

ChatGPT:

Here's a summarized version in seven bullets:

1. Mikey discusses his morning experience and a haircut mishap with his ponytail.
2. The main topic is audio grounding, connecting electricity to the Earth to drain away spurious current.
3. Two types of grounding explained: safety ground (for preventing electrocution) and signal ground (for zero voltage reference in audio signals).
4. Signal ground and safety ground are often interconnected in audio gear, but Mikey suggests isolating them for better performance.
5. Leakage current from power supplies needs to be drained off to prevent interference with signal ground.
6. Mikey explains the importance of isolating signal ground to avoid noise and interference.
7. He mentions grounding enhancements, emphasizing that simple DIY solutions can be effective without expensive gadgets.

 

[DonR]

ChatGPT:

^^^ This is the way!

 

[Keith_W]

ChatGPT:

Great work, thank you. Question then: does his method (i.e. separate safety ground and signal ground) eliminate ground loops?

 

[Music1969]

It would be nice if people would stop these threads containing a headline and a link. It looks more like a click-bait hunt and in search of discussion without having an opinion on the matter. Why the **** don't you at least sum up the contents of the video?

WTF?

Why can't ask the question I asked - if anything is technically correct?

Why did you even post here if you didn't even watch it and you can/can't answer the question in my OP ?

Please go post on a thread where you can contribute something with your responses to OPs.

 

[solderdude]

ChatGPT:

Seems sensible and conforms with how most think it should be done.



That said..... what he states is not a rule to get rid of audio gremlins and most audio devices have audio-ground (I prefer to call is 'common') tied to safety ground (the metal enclosure you can touch from the outside) anyway and it is not always clear how and where to cut that connection safely.

It is all about avoiding common mode currents,which is not the same as peaks and dips on the mains which is differential mode, meaning a peak/dip across Line and Neutral, from traveling through the shield of RCA cables from one device to another device.
Such leakage currents,between L+N and safety ground or actual ground (the floor you walk on), can cause a very small voltage drop across the RCA cable which ADDS to the signal and thus can be heard.

For this reason it is indeed a good solution to prevent those (almost unavoidable) leakage currents to enter the audio path.
Balanced cables between devices is such a solution as that unwanted current does not flow though the common (shield) of the audio path but a separate one (both enclosures).

That is .... when properly connected in both devices AND with properly build cables.

Ground lift can help but sometimes could do the opposite (when not correctly done in certain devices which one cannot see from the outside).

Then one needs to understand that not all leakage currents always leads to 'audio gremlins'. There are many, many cases where it either remains below audible thresholds or is properly connected in used gear.
Some gear (with the common connected to the enclosure) is done incorrectly and can be more are less susceptible to this depending on how and where that connection(s) are made inside.

 

[Blumlein 88]

WTF?

Why can't ask the question I asked - if anything is technically correct?

Why did you even post here if you didn't even watch it and you can/can't answer the question in my OP ?

Please go post on a thread where you can contribute something with your responses to OPs.

I understand his frustration. Want to know about the real deal with grounding? Read those links Sam Adams posted in post #2. Then you'll know if whatever was in the video is technically correct. If the video disagrees, then it is wrong. There are way too many videos that not worth the time to watch. Read those links from Bill Whitlock. Much better use of everyone's time and I guarantee you'll learn some useful things. If you have questions about that, lots of people will be happy to answer questions including Holdt.

I didn't watch the video either because after post #2 there was nothing to contribute further.

 

[mcdn]

WTF?

Why can't ask the question I asked - if anything is technically correct?

Why did you even post here if you didn't even watch it and you can/can't answer the question in my OP ?

Please go post on a thread where you can contribute something with your responses to OPs.

Because asking people to watch a rambling video is unreasonable. If you want commentary, summarise the video?

 

[SSS]

Audio grounding and ground loops. This was discussed and solutions provided in many documentations which can be found on the internet.
No need to view the video. Recording studios solved these issues already seventy years ago. Period.

 

[JSmith]

Question then: does his method (i.e. separate safety ground and signal ground) eliminate ground loops?

Ideally, separated is preferred and would generally prevent ground loops when two devices are connected by signal cables... some do, but not all manufacturers do this, for various reasons. It's more prudent from a user perspective to ensure the devices have the same ground reference potential, which often is just a matter of using the same supply circuit/power point for the devices as AC wiring impedance can vary. This is a bit simplistic, but for a short summary post.


JSmith

 

[Music1969]

I understand his frustration. Want to know about the real deal with grounding? Read those links Sam Adams posted in post #2. Then you'll know if whatever was in the video is technically correct. If the video disagrees, then it is wrong. There are way too many videos that not worth the time to watch. Read those links from Bill Whitlock. Much better use of everyone's time and I guarantee you'll learn some useful things. If you have questions about that, lots of people will be happy to answer questions including Holdt.

I didn't watch the video either because after post #2 there was nothing to contribute further.

Yes post #2 certainly adds valued - no question and I thank that poster.

What doesn't add any value is adding a BS reply like post #3 by @Holdt - such whinging.

I cannot understand such behaviour

He could simply choose to ignore the thread but instead makes a choice to spends time whinging

 

[Rednaxela]

Yes post #2 certainly adds valued - no question and I thank that poster.

What doesn't add any value is adding a BS reply like post #3 by @Holdt - such whinging.

I cannot understand such behaviour

This is because he has made you feel publicly shamed. Which is something he could have anticipated on in his wording. However that doesn't make it of no added value.

By the way I wouldn't be surprised if this recent thread added to the trigger, so some of it may also be a case of unfortunate timing.

 

[wwenze]

ChatGPT:

Here's a summarized version in seven bullets:

1. Mikey discusses his morning experience and a haircut mishap with his ponytail.
2. The main topic is audio grounding, connecting electricity to the Earth to drain away spurious current.
3. Two types of grounding explained: safety ground (for preventing electrocution) and signal ground (for zero voltage reference in audio signals).
4. Signal ground and safety ground are often interconnected in audio gear, but Mikey suggests isolating them for better performance.
5. Leakage current from power supplies needs to be drained off to prevent interference with signal ground.
6. Mikey explains the importance of isolating signal ground to avoid noise and interference.
7. He mentions grounding enhancements, emphasizing that simple DIY solutions can be effective without expensive gadgets.

**********

Yea that's pretty much my thoughts. There's only like one rule, or two. It's usually the implementation that is messy, but honestly there's nothing much to discuss if you can understand the base concept.

And also isolating ground or not and how to isolate it is not a matter of discussion, because it is covered under the electrical safety part of electrical code. No suggestions here, only rules.

Also just call it earth if you want to make it clear it's the public utility side. Earth Leakage Circuit Breaker, we don't call it Ground Leakage Circuit Breaker.

 

[restorer-john]

Also just call it earth if you want to make it clear it's the public utility side. Earth Leakage Circuit Breaker, we don't call it Ground Leakage Circuit Breaker.

We have names like ELCBs, RCDs, GFCI, RCCB or even core balance relays- they all do the same thing- they detect the difference between supply and return current to trip a breaker/relay.