Wire the House A/C or get Power Conditioner?

Saki70, as explained by an Audiogon member who is an electrician in another Audiogon thread several years ago (that I can't find now), what the isolated ground does is prevent the ground from being connected to the chassis of the receptacle. With both isolated ground and a non-isolated ground installations, the ground comes back to exactly the same place on the bus bar of the breaker panel. The only difference is in whether the ground is connected to the chassis of the receptacle.

If the receptacle and enclosing outlet box are attached to metal studs in commercial construction, the chassis is now making contact with the metal stud and hence to the rest of the building structure. With the ground being connected to the chassis (not isolated), your ground is now connected to the entire building structure. That can make for all sorts of noise, interference and hum possibilities. So, in commercial construction, you'd absolutely want to isolate the ground from the chassis: i.e., use an isolated ground receptacle and wiring installation.

On the other hand, in wood stud construction, the outlet and chassis are nailed to the non-conductive wood stud. There is nothing from which you need to isolate the ground. It no longer matters that the ground wire is not isolated from the chassis of the receptacle.

There is one other possible factor and that is the possibility of the fourth wire in the isolated ground installation providing some EFI drain or shielding for the length of cable back to the circuit panel. I don't know about that contention. I think you'd be better served by taking the trouble to twist the wires which make up the cable if you're trying to get maximum EFI rejection along the length of the cable.
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Rushton ;
I am not trying to argue with you . You seem knowledgable . I am just trying to learn and maybe help others too .
Does that explanation also apply when you connect the isolated circuit grounds to a seperate grounding bar inside of the panel ?
This grounding bar is mounted using rubber insulater pads and connected to a seperate ground wire that goes to a seperate ground rod installed 6 ft. away from the original rod .
It has been a while so I may be reaching now , but I seem to remeber that the recepticles are also different for an isolated ground system . Mine are red , which I believe denotes hospital grade , and have a green dot and an upside down black triangle on them .
This is the procedure that I found when I googled 'Isolated ground' and it is the way that my two circuits are installed .
As I stated before , when I called an electrician company , they sent out a residentual electrician who stated that he knew what I was talking about . When I gave him the parts that I had purchased , it was clear that he did not , and he called a coworker who did commercial installations . It was that coworker who came out and did the installation at my house .

Hi Saki70, I don't consider you being argumentative at all. You're asking good questions and this is a confusing topic.

I'm starting from the assumption that one will be following standard code installations as provided in most jurisdictions in the U.S., so pardon me being a bit parochial in my assumptions. "Code" requires the ground and neutral to be bonded to to a single common ground at the circuit panel and then to the grounding rod. What you describe does not match "Code" as I understand it, but I'm no expert.

In my last home, I had a commericial electrical company that understood hospital grade installations do the re-wiring of my circuit panel and install isolated ground outlets and cabling. They did so and the grounding at the panel was exactly as I described above: bonded to a common point at the circuit panel and then to the grounding rod.
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Are you saying that creating a 'new' common point inside the panel is incorrect according to code ? Or is that 'common point', that you mentioned , something different than the additional grounding bar that is installed inside the panel ?

Oh , and the triangles mentioned above would be pointing 'up' if the recepticles were installed in the other direction ! DUH !
And I believe that the green dot refers to hospital grade and the red recepticle refers to emergency power .

Hi Saki70, the issue of installing a second and separate ground in a household system has been discussed extensively in the forums. Some knowledgeable contributors say doing so violates Code and creates a potential for a dangerous situation. Others say its the best way to improve your sound. From what I've read, I'll not do it. Bottom line, if you had a licensed electrician make the installation and the electrician got the work inspected and approved, it must be okay in your locale. If the work was not inspected...

For those who are looking for more information about the installation of a separate ground for the audio system, here's a thread with more discussion:

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?htech&1193750975&openfrom&1&4#1

I recommend paying particular attention to the contributions from Gs5556 and Jea48 .

And this is all I know on the topic, so I won't be able to carry this any further - just offering the caution because so many audiophiles have gotten carried away on this isolated ground topic, and I find the potential for danger pretty frightening.
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