I don't know why I'm bothering to respond to this because you won't change my mind and I certainly won't change yours but as long as one component in the system is grounded THEY ARE ALL grounded because both RCA and XLR connectors have a ground connection. But another way of making sure that you only have one ground for the lowest noise possible in a system without lifting grounds is to connect everything to ONE power conditioner. That's what I do.