Thread: Questions on Grounding Speakers

Saw a Facebook post on the Fyne group where someone is running Ground wires from the back of his 502SPs to the Ground terminal on the back of his amp. The back of my Luxman also has a Ground connection so I am wondering the following...

When and why would one ground speakers?
Is it correct to ground it to the Amp?
Do you run ground wires from both speakers into the same single post on the amp?
What wire and connectors would you suggest?

The Luxman Manual leaves a little to be desired

1. Signal ground (ground terminal) (SIGNAL GROUND)

Is a ground terminal for devices to be connected to this unit.
This terminal is used to reduce noise when other devices are connected.
This terminal is designed not for safety

With very few exceptions in the entire world, no speaker should ever have a separate ground wire of any kind separately attached as far as I have ever read or heard.

There are rare exceptions, and those are documented in detail by the speaker manufacturer . The speaker has a dedicated and documented grounding post(s) in those very rare cases (not the binding posts).

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Originally Posted by SCAudiophile

With very few exceptions in the entire world, no speaker should ever have a separate ground wire of any kind separately attached as far as I have ever read or heard.

There are rare exceptions, and those are documented in detail by the speaker manufacturer . The speaker has a dedicated and documented grounding post(s) in those very rare cases (not the binding posts).

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Yes, the Fynes have a separate grounding post below the speaker terminals.

Yes, clearly two exceptions as they were designed to be grounded and have the post and document it.

Great sounding speakers in those lines as well!

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I would think if the speakers are connected to an amplifier with a single-ended output, and the amp is grounded they can share a common ground.

I was reading that Fyne manual and its notes "The purpose of this is to ground any radio frequency interference that may get back to the amplifier". So if your amp is already grounding and like I noted above, why would you ground it again ?

Unless it's a European suggestion

From the Tannoy support website



interesting post

Originally Posted by Speedskater

If you feel that you must ground the speaker, then the last sentence it the Tannoy instructions is the key.
Connect it to the amp's chassis.
While you are at it. Twisted pair (and twisted Quad) speaker cables are better at resisting interference pick-up.
Also run the ground wire in close proximity to the speaker cable.

My initial question was when and why. Under what circumstances or issues would you ground them? And is there any SQ benefit one way or the other?

The person doing this is running a Pier Audio MS 680 SE amplifier that uses one side of each speaker terminal as ground

in my system i use a Tripoint Elite grounding box for my sources, and a Tripoint Troy Signature for my amps. i also use a number of Entreq grounding boxes for my active bass towers.

in my experience, as you are going down the road of system development, and you are lowering your noise floor and finding little gains here and there with acoustic treatments, you need to keep an open mind as to what can help. relative to the question of this thread, once i connected my mono block amps to my Tripoint Troy and got a benefit, i figured for sh*ts and giggles, why not try grounding my passive speaker towers? so i connected a grounds from the Tripoint to the screws of my speaker terminal plates on my speakers and did get a noticeable lowering of noise, the music was more solid. it was a small step.

while i don't really care why these type things work, my guess is that the crossover is connected to this speaker terminal plate in some way and so i'm likely helping to add to the linearity of the crossover....but i'm just guessing. maybe it reduces EMI/RFI influence? another guess.

i expected nothing, but got something. keep your mind open. will every system clearly benefit from doing this? likely it depends on how otherwise mature and optimized things are. you might try it but your system noise floor does not allow you to hear what it's doing. then as you improve other things if you try it again it might then be audible. tweaks mostly do things in degrees, and are contextual.

also; i am of the opinion that grounding tweaks are best applied after you get the bones of your system where you want them. otherwise they can color your basic system building decisions. grounding is the cherry on top.