Walt wrote:

It may be "old school" but it's still the best way to avoid ground
loops.

No, the best way to avoid ground loops is to not have gear that causes
ground loops when you connect the shields. Today EMI is a bigger
problem than it used to be back when one-end-only shielding was in
vogue. While you may be able to fix a ground problem by lifting a
shield, you might cause an EMI problem that's worse than the ground
loop. Or maybe not. So you trade one problem for another. But if you do
things right, you can avoid both problems.

Sure, you can just wire everything up with the shields connected
at both ends and it will work most of the time. Until it doesn't and
then you can spend hours chasing stubborn ground loops.

You have to do it systematically. If your system is quiet with all the
shields connected and then gets noisy, either you've added something
new (so you know where the problem is) or something broke and you have
to find (and fix) it. If you hook up things one at a time starting with
the monitors, if something hums when you connect it, you fix it before
you connect the next thing. Do it right and you only have to do it
once.

Or you can leave holes in your shielding. Just make sure everyone turns
off cell hones and cordless phones, and keep your computer monitors
away from your audio cables. And don't build your studio near a
broadcast transmitter.

* If you've studied topology, this is equivalent to saying that the
ground system should have a trivial fundamental group. If you haven't,
nevermind.

And if you haven't read the June 1995 AES Journal, you haven't studied
grounding. It's practical, it's not rocket science, and you can order
the issue for $15 he
http://www.aes.org/publications/journal_issues.cfm