GFI For Amp Power Exterior Speakers

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amattas

amattas

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Jun 18, 2017
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Cincinnati, OH
Right now I have speakers overlooking my pool mounted on my deck. I'm considering using direct bury wire and putting them on posts closer to the pool so I don't have to keep the whole neighborhood awake to enjoy them.

Do I need to have the amps powering the speakers (located indoors) on a GFI circuit, my gut says no... but my paranoid sparky side says there's a small risk since speakers wouldn't be electrically bonded to the bonding grid.
 
A,

If the amplifier is outside, it should be GFCI protected, but if the amp is inside and the speakers outside, I can't think of any reason that the amp has to be GFCI protected.

Thanks,

Jim R.
 
That was my thought, since speakers are DC.

I guess a power surge could be an issue, but I likely would have bigger problems than the speakers at that point if it was a strong enough power surge to pass the amp.
 
Speakers aren't DC, but they are low voltage. Depending on the design of the amplifier, the negative speaker terminal may or may not be earth grounded. It is theoretically possible that a voltage potential could exist between the speakers and the bonding system. That said, a GFCI breaker won't likely prevent this, and the nature of speakers generally prevents coming into contact with wiring or terminals. Further, and again, depending on the amplfier design, connecting the speaker wiring to the bonding system could cause damage to the amp. But yeah, in real life, I can't think of a way that this could be a hazard.
 
The only component of a speaker system that would need to be bonded would be the box/case/shell/etc if it were made of a conductive material and withing the NEC's described distances from the water. Since the speaker voltage is nothing more than a complex transformer circuit, the speakers/wiring is effectively isolated from the high voltage side and as others have said as long as the amp is indoors it does not have to be on a GFCI

Dan
 
I have a receiver in the pool room that connected outdoor speakers got zapped last year and didn't kick the GFI. Friend who's a licensed electrician said it runs along the ground and induces voltage back to the receiver. but it was right behind my house I think I jumped 6' off the ground when it hit
 
Ouch! Could have been ESD too, I have WiFi and Camera's out by my pool, and one of the strikes hit my pool, but the ESD in the air traveled back to the switch and killed my POE bus in it. I'm now in the process of switching to a grounded patch panel and re-running all my lines with STP, that was an expensive mistake (lost a 48 port switch)
 

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jberger said:
Most amps don't even have ground plug, to prevent ground loop hums, so I don't know how a GFCI could help.
Click to expand...

Most hair dryers don't either, but if you drop it in the bath tub on a GFCI it'll still trip :)

It's actually measuring the current from the line, through the load, and back through the return through the neutral, if it varies by 5-20uA (depending on the the device) it'll trip. This is why GFCI/CAFI breakers also require a/the neutral to be attached to the breaker.
 
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