Audio Tweaks - Tweak Ref. 6

Description		Disclaimer
Ground your metal rack, reduce noise

Reference #	Submitted by	Submitter rating	Cost
6	Kevin Enderle	Excellent	$0.50

Source		Brand
Thought it up myself		All metal racks

Construction
Find a place to attach a wire to your rack (make sure you have bare metal to bare metal contact). Ground to a cold water ground.

Setup
Run wire.

Use
Metal racks can tend to act like antennas. They can actually create noise! This can drain off excess charge and noise. Great in dry climates where you get zapped a lot.

Performance
This can lower your noise floor (especially with digital gear present) and prevent your digital gear from getting zapped when the humidity is low and/or the wind blows a lot. Make sure you are hooking to a cold water ground!

Other
Use a multimeter to make sure you have a true ground!

Comments

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Colin	Could someone explain how you would use a multimeter to see if you have true ground? Thanks.

David	Hi gang, Grounding your metal component rack is an excellent idea, but don't stop there! Ground your metal speaker stands and even your speaker baskets. Colin, set your DVM or voltmeter to measure for continuity, this often comes with a tone or "beep". When your volt meter beeps with one probe on your ground source and the other on the metal object you are trying to ground, you have attained continuity and any signal or voltage will travel to ground and away from your music.

Vagos	Besides continuity, you need to know how good your ground is. You can check this by using a multimeter set to measure resistance in Ohm across the Ground (or in the afformentioned case the metal pipe) and the Negative cables in an outlet. It should read 2 Ohm or less. More is condindered to be unsafe (at least for 230V we have here in Greece). Please, ask an electrician to perform this test if you are unsure of what you are doing. My house had grounding via the metal pipes but it also had 215 Ohm ground resistance!! this is almost no ground at all. I have installed a separate ground cable to connect the house central grounding to 4 copper bars planted in the back garden and now have no more 0.2-0.3 Ohm resistance. This is close to ideal. My audio system now sounds like someone had removed a curtain from the front of my speakers, especially when listening to my turntable. Taking care of the grounding worth the trouble and the cost was less than 60 euros. Electricity can kill! Please, be C A R E F U L L.