Grounding, Audio Wiring, and Zero

Loop Area Design

By John H. Brandt

First of all, when it comes to sticking your hand into

the electrical service panel, you should really know
what you are doing. Never perform DIY on your
electrical panel without proper permits and qualified
supervision – meaning a licensed electrician who
knows the local electrical code. That said I shall
move on to explain the optimum procedure for
grounding and wiring your audio system.

Grounding

We continue to be inundated with electromagnetic interference as

society advances. Although government guidelines and laws regarding
emission help to a degree, the best protection is defense in the form of
good wiring, proper grounding, and correctly designed audio
equipment. Sadly, the home studio owner is usually swamped in these
EMI fields and the equipment that he can afford is not the best at
rejecting these same fields. Also, proper wiring design and grounding
techniques are often far from his grasp. This is my reason for writing
this paper.

The last drawing illustrates this technique. Also note that if a short run
to the ground stake is not possible, run several ground lines in parallel
to further reduce impedance (resistance + inductance). The sub-panel
that services the studio must have its own ground rod as close as
possible. This will provide a short circuit for any noise currents in the
ground line running to the mains panel and act as a summing node
and reference for the studio. I am sure that you have read about
clocking stability and digital reference. Well, if you do not have a good
ground, your very expensive clock may still have a jitter problem.

Some of these grounding and wiring details will be difficult to accept

by many electricians who think that current is current and ground is
ground. But if you take some time to show them this paper, I believe
that they will understand what we are talking about.
The primary reason for grounding is safety. A good ground will drain
potentially lethal currents in the event of a short circuit in the
equipment’s power circuitry like a live wire short to chassis. This is
commonly overlooked by folks who only focus on the second reason
for ground; noise. The use of ‘ground lift adapters’ is not a good
solution. They may work in a pinch but always drastically increase the
risk of electrocution and/or equipment damage. By the way, the
grounding adapters were designed to ‘ground’ two wire circuits by
screwing the metal tab of the adapter to the center screw in the wall
plate. (American continent only)

Proper low impedance grounding will help in eliminating noise from the
system and also help in preventing noise from entering the system
from external sources on the power lines.

The phrase, ‘Low Impedance’ is the key. Not only do we want the
lowest resistance cable, but the line needs to exhibit low impedance to
all audio frequencies as well. Similar to research that has been done
for loudspeaker cables, the conclusion to use large diameter, multi-
stranded, multi-conductor cable woven together to present the lowest
impedance between amp and speaker. Weaving multiple wires
together reduces the overall inductance thereby reducing the total
impedance. Inductance is an electro-magnetic phenomenon which will
cancel itself as the wires forming the circuit are brought closer
together. The equal and opposite magnetic fields cancel.

A low impedance source will provide current on demand without

causing the voltage to droop or sag. This is important because many
instantaneous current demands are made by your studio equipment,
(unless you have everything operating in Class A or constant current –
which is not likely), especially power amplifiers. Crank it up and listen
to the kick drum. The power drain from the electrical supply is not
continuous, but a series of high current pulses. A power conditioner
will not help here.

If you really want the music to sound beefy & punchy - right and tight,
make certain that you have oversized wiring from the service entrance
to your audio power outlets (even if the fusing is much below this
rating) and individual heavy gauge ground lines running back to the
ground buss in the power panel from each outlet. This will help to
make your power supply circuit act as a constant voltage source.

When wiring the electrical for audio, do not daisy chain the ground
lines. Individual stranded copper ground lines (with a green or
yellow/green jacket) should run directly back to the studio electrical
supply panel. The gauge should be at least 14 gauge, though I would
recommend 12 gauge wire - even for a 220 V, 5A circuit.

The individual ground wires should connect directly into the ground
buss in the panel which is in turn connected directly to the heaviest
gauge stranded copper ground wire that you can afford. This heavy
gauge wire should be made as short as possible and connect to a 2.4
meter or 8 foot copper clad steel ground rod driven into damp earth.

Your Audio Wiring & Phase

In many parts of the world only single phase is available. This is a

good thing because only one phase should be used in the studio. In
North America, residential service is single phase 240 volt center
tapped. The center tap is grounded at the pole and becomes the
neutral line. This basically gives a residence 120VAC in two opposing
phases.

Ideally, the studio should be run from only one of these phases while
the rest of the home can be run on the other side to ‘balance’ the load.
Many times this is not possible and for these situations I recommend
an isolation transformer with a 240V primary and 120V secondary,
rated at double the expected load. The higher rating lowers the
impedance of the secondary and provides voltage stability.

In other parts of the world, 240V is provided directly into the home on
only two wires. One live and one neutral, grounded at the pole or
service entrance.

If you are in an industrial complex with 3-phase wiring, you must

connect only to one phase for the audio wiring or use an isolation
transformer that will convert to single phase and the required voltage.
The electrical for audio must be in a separate panel connected directly
to the mains panel. This panel must not be in connection with any
other circuits but is to be connected with oversized wiring or through
an isolation transformer to the main service entrance panel.

Also note that UPS or uninterruptible power supplies are only

recommended for a single computer and should not be used to power
anything else. Usually the UPS is not capable of supplying the current
necessary for several devices. They are not low impedance units and
can often cause more problems than they solve.
Harmonics on the power lines can
get through the windings of the
supply transformers in many pieces
of equipment and can be very
disruptive by causing jitter in the
digital circuits.
I recommend professional filter units
be installed on the most critical
circuits to the control room and
highly recommend SurgeX products,
particularly the SX series.

Zero Loop Area

I know this may be a confusing topic

for some so I shall begin by
explaining the ground loop. Also,
please note that “zero loop area”
was coined by Neil A. Muncy whom I
had the pleasure to work with in
1998. His AES paper entitled, “Noise
Susceptibility in Analog and Digital
Signal Processing Systems” is
available for purchase for the more
technically inclined.

As you can see in the drawing to the

left, the ground wire in the electrical
system and the ground wire in the
audio system connects to form a
loop. This will introduce the ambient
electromagnetic field into the audio
system. 50 or 60 Hz depending on
your local power frequency plus all
the unwanted harmonics and
electromagnetic hash that may be
present due to dimmers and other
hash producing equipment, etc.

The solution is to collapse the loop

as shown below.
Clean studio power is run in a
dedicated conduit. When long runs
are required from control room to
tracking room and booths, the
runs are direct as possible and do
not loop around the room. This is
accomplished by running the
electrical for audio conduit in the
ceiling or floor. Run a straight line
with short branches as necessary.

The audio cabling must run in

larger conduit(s) right next to the
electrical conduit. This procedure
eliminates the loop in the ground
wires as there will be no area.
Parallel ground wires do not
create a loop and in fact can lower
impedance by lowering the
inductance of the wiring.

Hospital grade receptacles with

isolated grounds are highly
recommended. Use IG (isolated
ground) outlets and steel
conduits. The metal frame of the
receptacle is not connected to the
ground pin, and the ground pin
has its own separate screw to
which an isolated ground wire is
connected. The metal frame
makes contact with the metal box
into which the receptacle is
mounted. This same metal frame
is grounded all the way back to
the service panel via the metal
conduit. The conduit and box
create a safety ground.

The isolated ground wire runs,

insulated, inside the steel conduit
and is also connected to the
ground buss which is, in turn,
connected to the chassis of the service panel.

When plugging into the patch panels and/or using an extension cords,
always keep the lines short and bundled tightly together as much as
possible.

The exception to this rule would

include ungrounded wall wart
transformers and unshielded
line transformers which must
be kept about 3ft. or 1 meter
away from any unbalanced
audio lines. The stray magnetic
flux from these unshielded
units will induce a smooth low
frequency hum into unbalanced
audio lines and must be kept at
a safe distance away from
them.

The drawing on the left shows

correct low impedance wiring
procedure.

If you do not use an iso-

transformer make certain to
use only a single phase to
feed the new studio sub-
panel.

Proper Implementation of the

star ground system:

I have seen multiple ground

stakes connected in a star
pattern and called a star
ground. That is not a star
ground.

The drawing here shows

multiple ground lines. One
isolated ground line per
receptacle going directly back
to the main ground buss. This
is a star ground and also offers low impedance and high isolation for
each outlet against interference caused by equipment on other outlets
and in other circuits.

If you have an questions/comments concerning this article, I can be

reached via email here: john@jhbrandt.net.

Sincerely,
John H. Brandt

http://jhbrandt.net or http://jhbrandt.com
 
 Main Service Panel Wires are over-sized and running
at service entrance parallel in metal conduit to present
low impedance - wires can be
doubled to improve inductance.

Single Phase
to other circuits in building wiring to individual circuits are also
Separate conduits oversized for example; 120V 20A
Optional circuit will use 10ga. stranded wire
Isolation / 15A circuit will use 12ga. stranded
Circuit Breakers
Grounds tied Transformer wire, etc...

Studio Electrical
Sub-Panel
Lights, utility plugs, HVAC
Sub-Panel
Ground Buss
Neutral Buss
No other circuits connected NEUTRAL

to this branch circuit HOT GROUND

LUG SCREW

Neutral bonded to ground. OUTLET BOX

RECEPTACLE GROUNDING GROUNDING CONDUCTOR (GREEN)

G
TAPPED HOLE IN BOX
Not touching
N

GROUNDING SCREW
-#10 32 X 3/8"
SLOTTED HEXAGON
HEAD, WASHER FACE
SCREW (TYPICAL)

WIRE NUT (TYPICAL)

Large gauge stranded copper NOTE:

GROUNDING CONDUCTOR
SHALL BE CONTINUOUS SO
CONDUIT THAT REMOVAL OF DEVICE
WILL NOT INTERFERE WITH
CONDUCTOR CONTINUITY.

GROUNDED RECEPTACLE INSTALLATION

Individual Ground Lines
from each outlet to ground

Correct Low Impedance Wiring buss irregardless of circuit

- One circuit can have
many ground lines running
Studio Outlets
- ideally should be
back to sub-panel hospital-grade,

& Grounding Technique isolated-ground

receptacles

Copper Ground
Stake near panel

EARTH
 Electrical Wiring
in the house

Power
LOOP AREA Cord
Power
Cord
Instrument Microphone
Amplifier Cable
Mixer

To instrument
LOOP AREA
Instrument
Cables
Microphone
DI box Patch
Microphone panel
Cable
Microphone
Cable Electrical
Outlet
 (Low Impedance Supply)
Studio
electrical
panel
Electrical Wiring
in the house
Electrical Outlet
(used only for service)
like lamps or vacuum cleaners, etc...
Power
Cord

Instrument dedicated
Amplifier power for
Power studio Microphone Cable Mixer
Cord Patch panel in
Microphone
Control Room
Patch panel in
To instrument Studio it for audio c
ables
it for ele
ctrical Dedicated CR
Condu
Instrument Condu
outlet(s)
Power Dedicated
Cables
Cord Microphone Studio outlet(s)
DI box Microphone
ZERO LOOP AREA Cable Power
Cable Cord
Cables are kept tightly bundled together
ZERO inductive pickup
Electrical Outlet
(used only for service)