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It senses a voltage imbalance (short) as small as few milliamps between the hot and neutral and trips in 1/30 of a second. Does this afford the same protection as a grounded outlet?
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No........Safer - yes....
You are using a GFI in an ungrounded condition. It is safer than a normal receptacle used in an ungrounded (cheated) condition.
When a normal outlet is wired properly, and a three wire device is plugged into it, the metal case of the device is now attached directly to your house safety ground system. If a short occurs internally in the device and the case becomes live, then the breaker for that circuit will immediately trip indicating the fault. If you have the third safety wire cheated or removed and this happens, the live metal case will likely electocute you before the breaker will trip. The 120 volts will travel through you if you touch a ground. That's obviously bad news.
What happens when you use an ungrounded GFI? Well, when a fault occurs in the device, the case again becomes live. There is no "difference" in the loads at the GFI so it doesn't trip yet. When you touch the live case, the hot current now exceeds the neutral current and the GFI trips. See the small problem you still have. You don't get electrocuted, but you get a shock. How bad a shock is determined by the speed of the GFI.
You're safer - not safe.........better than simply using the cheater
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Finally, look at your lamps, etc that are still two prong. I don't think there is any more of a chance of audio equipment shorting than these other household items.
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Nonsense....
brucek