I can not see an isolated ground being necessary for any home installation. There are not many electrical devices in homes that generate enough noise on the equipment grounding conductor to cause problems. Besides most home entertainment equipment doesn't even have an equipment grounding conductor. Unfortunately many people think an isolated ground means connecting the ground from the desired receptacle to a ground rod without connection to the buildings grounding system. An isolated grounding conductor still must be connected to the buildings grounding system but the connection is made at the service panel. In reality if you have a dedicated circuit going to one receptacle and it is being fed from the service panel it does have an isolated ground unless you have steel studs and use a metal box. To avoid fires it is important to make sure that the circuit feeding this equipment is installed properly and is sized correctly. Make sure if you use power strips that they are UL listed and not overloaded. Make sure you plug all of you equipment directly into the receptacle or power strip and do no use the extra outlets provided on the back of some equipment.


Curt Swartz