When installing JBL 305p powered studio monitors in my home theater and PC game room, I encountered severe ground loop noise. I tried using ground loop isolators, grounding as you call it, and still got a lot of noise coming out of the monitors. In the end I decided to take this and a 2-in-1 optical SPDIF splitter and see if switching to an optical signal removes noise. It worked great and the biggest benefit was that I can still control the system volume with the remote that comes with the DAC. If you have a setup similar to mine with the same issues, try this. /2021: Lost some satisfaction with this product due to poor sound quality and volume control system. It worked great for a $20 DAC and confirmed my ground loop theory in my setup. However, the volume control didn't work properly and the actual volume gradation wasn't very good. You can go from SUPER LOUD to a little too quiet, but not in between. I also noticed a hum and hiss in the background. I replaced it with an SMSL Sanskrit MKII and it was a huge improvement over this DAC. The volume control is way better (can do a lot of tiny adjustments) and even the remote control is way better. The sound quality has also improved significantly and the hiss/hum is gone.
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