That's what i didn't understand about the Granite Audio device. How could it work if you were still plugging everything into the wall with 3 pins?People think of electrical current flow like water that pours from a hose into the ground and disappears. It's really a loop, with ground being the return path. You do not want the return path to differ from the signal (delivery) path or things get out of synch. As Mark notes, ensuring every signal line has a matching ground is one way to help. Normally signal ground flows through the shield of your interconnect, but that shield is often coupled (directly, through a small R, or capacitively) to the chassis or earth (outlet) ground. An extra ground connection creates another, potentially harmful, loop. The idea behind star grounding is that every component has just one path to the common ground point, it is the same path as the signal return current path, and that one ground point then provides the final earth ground.
Note the ground wire in your outlet is considered a safety ground and should not normally carry any current anyway.
Edit: I was writing while valkyrie was posting, he was faster.Our posts are in agreement.
Thanks Don. I digested Val's post whole, i'm surprised those snakes don't get indigestion.
