Perhaps a pedestrian question, but I'm curious why the power cables that came with my Triton Two speakers do not have a ground pin. The connector on the speaker is a standard 3-pin like those used on a PC, but the wall plug only has two prongs and no ground pin.

The primary reason I ask is that we had a massive thunderstorm last week and it zapped the microcontroller on my Denon AVR. Time to get better power protection for the AVR rack!

But what about my Tritons? Should they be plugged into a power protection device as well? Not something I planned for when I built the house, so it will mean running the sub's power cables along the baseboard. But if that's what it takes to properly protect my Triton's, that's what I will do.

I'm also a tad concerned at just how much power protection the Triton sub amps will require. Any recommendations?

Thanks in advance for your replies.

Hey Terry, you bet!
I run my T2s and T7s from a power surge protector and conditioner.
Protect the ones you love.
You will be glad you did. This from a guy who had to put a new tweeter ribbon in an Apogee Stage speaker in Kuwait, HARD WORK.
Power surges are NO FUN.
Enjoy,
God Bless,
Wayne

Sorry for the delay, I did not want to give you a layman's answer ... so here it is, right from the top:

Any AV product with a ground connection on the power cord can cause ground loops if more then one item in the whole AV system has a grounded power cord or grounded cable service connection. This occurs as there is a ground connection between each AV component through the interconnect cables and when two or more AV components are also connected to AC mains ground this creates a second ground path and so a ground loop through the interconnect cables and the mains cords. Ground loops look electrically like loop antenna (remember old FM radio and TV set antenna?) and so do a great job of picking up all sorts of radio and 60Hz noise to become injected into the interconnect cables. The result is an AV system that can produce weird noises, often intermittent and varying in level as well as 60HZ hum. Just the sort of issues that can drive installers and AV enthusiasts to run screaming into the woods to become off grid, back to the land hermits only using candle light to sit alone in a log cabin.

As I have no wish to inflict this fate on our our customers, all GoldenEar products are designed as fully floating balanced input devices that have no reference to the AC main ground. This prevents any possibility of ground loops with our products. We do this by designing in what is called "double insulation" where all electrical insulation used in the product is always double what is required to be completely safe. This removes the need for any AC mains ground connection on the power cord.

All GoldenEar product also incorporates surge protection built in the product. Hard facts of life are there is no such thing as perfect surge protection, if the gods have it in for your AV system you are going to get hit. So you can never have enough surge protection and whatever you have may not be enough some day. That said, to date I have not had any reports of surge related damage to GoldenEar products and I personally do not add any additional external protection to my Triton speakers.

Head of R&D
GoldenEar Technology

Dear "Head of R&D, GoldenEar Technology",
I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you very, very much. As I read your first sentence, it immediately took me back to 7th grade when my father was explaining why my electric guitar amp would hum and buzz and things I could do to reduce it (and sometimes eliminate it). I really appreciate you taking the time to write out such a thorough response. I feel much better knowing that even you don't have surge protection for your Tritons.

Another very happy GoldenEar customer,
Terry