Paul,
That is what I want to do. However, as Kevin mentioned, all ground rods must be connected together. Your second ground rod may not be at the same potential as the house ground rod. In a thunderstorm, there is danger that your equipments connected to second ground rod got fried. I read a bit around the internet. It is still beneficial to install second ground rod and connected to the house ground rod as it will lower the resistance of the whole ground rod.
Paul,
That is what I want to do. However, as Kevin mentioned, all ground rods must be connected together. Your second ground rod may not be at the same potential as the house ground rod. In a thunderstorm, there is danger that your equipments connected to second ground rod got fried. I read a bit around the internet. It is still beneficial to install second ground rod and connected to the house ground rod as it will lower the resistance of the whole ground rod.
Absolutely correct; I have (and was educated on this by a master electrician who is also an audiophile), 2 ground rods, 8 feet long each, separated by 7+ feet (8 was not possibly) and joined by solid copper (4-gauge) wire.
Single most important thing beyond that (IMHO) is to NOT use typical attach clips for ground wire through/to the top of the rod. Have your electrician give measures to an electrical supply house and spend the couple of
hundred extra $$$ on a "CADWELD KIT" allowing for 2 welds; the CADWELD process will permanently and completely bond the ground wire to ground rod #1, then to ground rod#2 prior to it running into the attach point
to your home's main electrical connection.
The 2nd ground here (installed well over 2-2.5 years ago here) with this CADWELD bonding and spending the extra money on the large-gauge lead wire gave me immediate and noticeable results.
Any questions, please let me know....
Another thing you may want to try is the use of an Environmental Potentials EP-2050 Wave-Form regenerator/surge-suppression unit on your main house panel and EP-2750 Ground Filters on any
audio or video circuit in your main and/or sub-panels. Of course, if you are fortunate enough to have an isolation-transformer panel like Mike Lavigne & others or other solutions (stand-alone
isolation transformer(s)), you won't need the EP-2050.
The above gave me a sound quality (and video quality on the UltraHD 4K panel in the living room as a great side effect) that I've not experienced in all homes/audio rooms prior to this.
The key to grounding is not found with copper rods. It has far more to do with whether the grounds of the various parts of your system are properly executed.
If they are, you will find the ground stake to be of no benefit whatsoever. If they are not, you might hear a change with the ground stake. The problem here has already been outlined- if you have a stake right outside of your audio room and that is where your equipment is grounded, you do stand a pretty good chance of the entire system being damaged by a lightning strike on the AC power lines (which means it does not have to be a strike all that close to your house).
How should the equipment be grounded? The chassis should be connected to the electrical ground via the power cord.. The audio ground should not be the same as the chassis. So if you were to use a DVM set on Ohms scale, and you measured from the chassis to an audio connector, you would find that its not a direct short. If it is, the equipment will be vulnerable to ground loops. The exception here is balanced line equipment, but this only works if all the equipment is balanced and not only that, but all the gear should support the balanced line standard (otherwise known today as AES file 48).
If the equipment is not grounded at all (open between the chassis and the ground connection of the power cord) then it can be dangerous if things go wrong (for example the power switch on the front panel is damaged and shorts to the chassis).
So there is the safety bit of this, and then there is the sonic bit. It just so happens that if both are served correctly, you get the best of both: electrical safety and the lowest noise. Ground stakes really have nothing to do with it- they only help if things are already messed up, and they often cause complications of their own.
Absolutely correct; I have (and was educated on this by a master electrician who is also an audiophile), 2 ground rods, 8 feet long each, separated by 7+ feet (8 was not possibly) and joined by solid copper (4-gauge) wire.
Single most important thing beyond that (IMHO) is to NOT use typical attach clips for ground wire through/to the top of the rod. Have your electrician give measures to an electrical supply house and spend the couple of
hundred extra $$$ on a "CADWELD KIT" allowing for 2 welds; the CADWELD process will permanently and completely bond the ground wire to ground rod #1, then to ground rod#2 prior to it running into the attach point
to your home's main electrical connection.
The 2nd ground here (installed well over 2-2.5 years ago here) with this CADWELD bonding and spending the extra money on the large-gauge lead wire gave me immediate and noticeable results.
Any questions, please let me know....
Another thing you may want to try is the use of an Environmental Potentials EP-2050 Wave-Form regenerator/surge-suppression unit on your main house panel and EP-2750 Ground Filters on any
audio or video circuit in your main and/or sub-panels. Of course, if you are fortunate enough to have an isolation-transformer panel like Mike Lavigne & others or other solutions (stand-alone
isolation transformer(s)), you won't need the EP-2050.
The above gave me a sound quality (and video quality on the UltraHD 4K panel in the living room as a great side effect) that I've not experienced in all homes/audio rooms prior to this.
The key to grounding is not found with copper rods. It has far more to do with whether the grounds of the various parts of your system are properly executed.
If they are, you will find the ground stake to be of no benefit whatsoever. If they are not, you might hear a change with the ground stake. The problem here has already been outlined- if you have a stake right outside of your audio room and that is where your equipment is grounded, you do stand a pretty good chance of the entire system being damaged by a lightning strike on the AC power lines (which means it does not have to be a strike all that close to your house).
How should the equipment be grounded? The chassis should be connected to the electrical ground via the power cord.. The audio ground should not be the same as the chassis. So if you were to use a DVM set on Ohms scale, and you measured from the chassis to an audio connector, you would find that its not a direct short. If it is, the equipment will be vulnerable to ground loops. The exception here is balanced line equipment, but this only works if all the equipment is balanced and not only that, but all the gear should support the balanced line standard (otherwise known today as AES file 48).
If the equipment is not grounded at all (open between the chassis and the ground connection of the power cord) then it can be dangerous if things go wrong (for example the power switch on the front panel is damaged and shorts to the chassis).
So there is the safety bit of this, and then there is the sonic bit. It just so happens that if both are served correctly, you get the best of both: electrical safety and the lowest noise. Ground stakes really have nothing to do with it- they only help if things are already messed up, and they often cause complications of their own.
I believe my equipment from Esoteric is properly executed, the know after exhaustive work after moving in that the house electrical system, the listening room sub-panel and grounding solution for the house is as well. I don't agree with you that the only reason systems improve in sound quality after all this work is that something must be messed up to begin with....if you could explain a bit more about your statements, that would be helpful. Thanks!
Its pretty simple. If the chassis of an amplifier is not connected to the circuit ground but it is grounded, then it is a more silent noise shield for the amp. The other obvious benefit is that if tied to something else, ground currents between the various bits of the audio chain can't form a ground loop. If things are going right, a stake in the ground will make no improvement whatsoever. The fact that it did something for you really suggests that something was amiss to start with.
Belief is good- knowledge is better. Get a DVM and see if your gear is in fact properly grounded.
Ralph, I know you know your stuff but maybe you can help me out here. The benefit of the local earth ground is to bring potential to the same level at each wall outle'ts ground so each chassis sees the same potential and thereby grounds to the outlet into which it is plugged. You seem to be completely ignoring the fact that all sorts of things from run length and wire gauge to induction loops can cause potential to vary at each outlet ground which causes stray voltages at the respective components to run across components through interconnects causing ground loops. IMO you seam to be saying a local ground rod isn't going to help unless you need a local ground. Your whole premise is predicated on equal potential at each outlet which is the whole reason for the local rods from the start.
But all the ground rods for a building must be connected together at a single junction and connected to the power company Neutral at the building service entrance/main breaker panel. A circuit's Safety Ground system also connects to that Neutral. The Safety Ground wire has to follow the same path as the Hot & Neutral back to the main breaker box.Sorry if I wasn't clear. The ground rod for the audio system is in addition to the safety ground at the main entrance of the building meaning it is attached to the main entrance safety ground but is local to the audio system which brings the potential at all five outlets used by the audio system to the same level thereby avoiding ground loops.
Here are some common myths about grounding: Earth grounds are all at zero volts — presumably with respect to each other and to some“mystical absolute” reference point. This leads to whimsical ideas about lots of ground rods making system noises disappear! In fact, the soil resistance between ground rods is much higher(often tens of ohms) than a wire between them.
To prevent this [ack: shock], many devices have a third wire connecting exposed metal to the safety ground pin of their plugs. The outlet safety ground is routed, through either the green wire or metallic conduit, to the neutral conductor at the main breaker panel. This low-impedance connection to neutral allows high fault current to flow, quickly tripping the circuit breaker and removing power from the circuit. To function properly, the SAFETY GROUND MUST RETURN TO NEUTRAL. Note that the earth connection had absolutely nothing to do with this process!
An EARTH ground is one actually connected to the earth and is necessary for LIGHTNING protection.
If multiple ground rods are used, Code requires that they all must be bonded to the main utility power grounding electrode.
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