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Installing DEDICATED power line to 2 channel system


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Hi....... would love some advice / thoughts about installing a dedicated line from outside electrical box , then under the house and finally to a wall socket in audio room ( please note, electrician will do the wiring )

 

From what I've read so far this seems to be the basics:  

 

- 20A at the box ( some recommend to have its own circuit breaker ...... necessary ?

 

- 10, 12 or 14 gauge wire.   Am thinking of using DH Labs ENCORE 14g  bulk wire at about $25 a meter........ hoping this would give much better results than standard house wire..... any experiences here ?   ( run would be 15 metres)

 

- Good quality double power outlet like Furutech GTX -d 20A  or PS Audio Power Port classic etc

 

Equipment: Really only 1 power hungry Musical Fidelity Trivista 300W which I will plug directly into the wall socket ,   a REL  S 510 sub ,   plus a DAC, a Streamer plugged into an ISOTEk power board     ....    then Yamaha 1000 which are pretty efficient.

 

Do you think I will get some good sonic improvement with this ? Would really appreciate any suggestions and experiences gained by the Stereonet crew.

 

 

 

 

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Plenty of other threads on this here. 

 

Those outlets are illegal to install. Check that the intended cable is also certified for Australian use but your electrician if any good, will check both of these. 

 

An Australian 10a outlet can safely provide 2400w. P=VI 

 

Would suggest listening to powerboards first at a store or getting an in home demo. 

 

I believe in a dedicated circuit even if no audible improvement, it shouldn't ever do any harm and is relatively cheap to do especially if easy access under the house as it sounds you have and if capacity remains in your board.

 

*I am a licenced electrician*

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I have a sparky coming tomorrow to wire up  man cave number 2. I'll show him your post and see what he says. He wired up man cave number one on a separate circuit.

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1 hour ago, mfforever said:

Am thinking of using DH Labs ENCORE 14g  bulk wire at about $25 a meter........ hoping this would give much better results than standard house wire..... any experiences here ?   ( run would be 15 metres)

I had a separate dedicated circuit installed.  The cable was 

http://www.gigawatt.eu/produkt/in-wall-cable-gigawatt-lc-y-mk3-3x4/

 

The electrician thought I was mad because of the cost of the cable.  I am happy as I perceived a benefit.  Interestingly the voltage was slightly higher than on the previous circuit.

 

I also had a Gigawatt circuit breaker installed at the switchboard.

http://www.gigawatt.eu/produkt/g-16a-power-grid-overcurrent-protection-switch/

 

All sockets on the circuit are Australian.

John

 

 

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Someone whom I know well had a dedicated line put in just for the stereo.  He had an old house with old wiring. Found no difference.

 

Same person heard differences with better power cords. And I ended up with the same power cords. 

 

@mfforever, anything to do with power, conditioning, filters etc. Is a contentious subject. Some people found improvements, others dispute it.  Only way is to try for yourself....

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So true, Snoopy .......    sonic improvements are sometimes pretty elusive, but it doesn't seem to stop us chasing them nevertheless. I'll tackle this project slowly, with as much information up front to improve my chances.

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3 hours ago, Assisi said:

I also had a Gigawatt circuit breaker installed at the switchboard.

http://www.gigawatt.eu/produkt/g-16a-power-grid-overcurrent-protection-switch/

 

Good idea to get a decent switchboard circuit breaker installed at the same time a dedicated power line is being installed.

 

I like SurgeX stuff:

 

https://avaustralia.com.au/surgex-advanced-sxn1230-branch-circuit-surge-eliminator/

 

ZeroSurge, SurgeX and BrickWall all use the same series-mode protection system. All use the patented ZeroSurge technology.

 

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On 21/01/2021 at 12:47 PM, mfforever said:

Thanks, Rand .......   I have definitely added a circuit breaker to my "must install " list

 

Please check with your local safety regulatory body. That Gigawatt unit, for instance, is not approved for use in Victoria. Just use a normal RCBO for safety's sake and if you want the last word in compliant sockets, Clipsal 56.

 

Lots of choices in wire(I'd use ESD) though you'll be unlikely to find more than 4mm in solid core if that matters to you.

 

If you want 'last word's setup, a balanced isolation transformer on a separate earth with its own protection is possible. As per most music studios. You can pay silly money for this or call Airlink and get something studio quality at a reasonable price, or have a good sparky make it from parts.

 

I'd drop two circuits as the cost is stuff all different and only condition one of them - then you can always A/B.

 

And get your sparkle to assemble some cables for you whilst there.

Edited by rmpfyf
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4 minutes ago, rmpfyf said:

Please check with your local safety regulatory body. That Gigawatt unit, for instance, is not approved for use in Victoria. Just use a normal RCBO for safety's sake and if you want the last word in compliant sockets, Clipsal 56.

 

 

This!!

 

I had a dedicated circuit put in - nothing special cable wise except for using a mains supply cable as used in hospitals (locally).

Then used high quality switch board filtering/circuit breaker, but ensured it was Electrical compliant for Victoria. Why anyone would run the risk of losing everything and having zero insurance cover is beyond me. Insurance assessors are trained to look for a way out, and some of the products being used are laughing into the hands of the insurance companies.

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On 20/01/2021 at 7:18 PM, mfforever said:

Do you think I will get some good sonic improvement with this ? Would really appreciate any suggestions and experiences gained by the Stereonet crew

Check your earth stake and have an Electrician check the main switchboard Mutiple Earth Neutral. Otherwise upgrading the switchboard, re stripping all the terminations and re doing can return results if there are any with regard to noisy loose terminations. If you are experiencing issues like "being able to hear things through the stereo, like the fridge switching on and off" eliminate these faulty devices.

 

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43 minutes ago, Dirkgerman said:

Otherwise upgrading the switchboard, re stripping all the terminations and re doing can return results if there are any with regard to noisy loose terminations.

 

Often not looked at and very sage advice.

 

Also a telling difference between a sparkie and a great sparkie.

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50 minutes ago, rmpfyf said:

sparkie

:) 

My idea of a "Dedicated Power Line" differs from most. Wink, wink nudge, nudge :) BUT, well outside the handbrakes scope of cost in embedment at the premises. 

 

solar Tasmania.jpg

Edited by Dirkgerman
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There is no reason you can't have your electrician install a higher current outlet with the appropriate wiring and breaker. I had 3 separate outlets installed just for my hifi, using 2x 20A outlets and 1x 10A. There are standards for increasingly large outlets but they didn't really take off much in Australia because we have 240V we rarely need higher currents for residential usage. I have seen 15 and 20A outlets often, but never the larger ones. They're designed to be backward compatible so you can plug any 10A plug into a 15 or above, but not the other way around.

 

800px-Australian_mains_socket_styles_for

 

I did not find it caused an audible difference for what it's worth, but introduced earth loops if I put the power amp on a different line to the preamp (this actually makes sense but I wasn't thinking at the time) so in the end I use just one of the 20A outlets that was put in for all the gear. That said, everything runs through the one 3.5kVA power conditioner now so I would have had to use the one outlet anyway. Ultimately the only advantage to me of dedicated lines was not powering any other items off the same lines and avoiding tripping the breaker because I ran too many things at the same time.

Edited by Ittaku
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44 minutes ago, Ittaku said:

introduced earth loops if I put the power amp on a different line to the preamp (this actually makes sense but I wasn't thinking at the time

 

Definitely! I learned this the hard way just by having my ceiling mounted projector on a different circuit to the rest of the AV system. The link between the two circuits was of course the HDMI cable, and I tore my hair out tracking it down before the lightbulb moment!

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mmmmmmmm ....... All the above responses are why I love this Forum  ( experience and knowledge are potent forces )  Some new observations on my dedicated line journey ....

 

- being Australian compliant in regards to insurance is starting to look more attractive....  

- Dirkgerman's set up is absolutely amazing ( but beyond me .......  I think he is off -selling beautiful clean power to the rest of the State rather than just domestic use )

- a great sparkie worth their weight in gold

- as in all things audio, you can spend time and money and have no guarantee of sonic improvement.

 

When I finally get this done, will post my thoughts on sonic improvement...... thanks for all the input.

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25 minutes ago, Marc said:

 

Definitely! I learned this the hard way just by having my ceiling mounted projector on a different circuit to the rest of the AV system. The link between the two circuits was of course the HDMI cable, and I tore my hair out tracking it down before the lightbulb moment!

 By different circuit do you mean different phase? If installed correctly , equipment is functioning correctly you should have no issues running equipment on multiple circuits on the same phase. 

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1 hour ago, Ittaku said:

I did not find it caused an audible difference for what it's worth, but introduced earth loops if I put the power amp on a different line to the preamp (this actually makes sense but I wasn't thinking at the time)

 

47 minutes ago, Marc said:

Definitely! I learned this the hard way just by having my ceiling mounted projector on a different circuit to the rest of the AV system. The link between the two circuits was of course the HDMI cable, and I tore my hair out tracking it down before the lightbulb moment!

 

That's interesting.  As a result of experiments I had done in my previous house (replacing 1x 20a circuit for hifi with 1x 20a for digital components and 1x 20a for analogue components), when the current house was built, I had 13x 20a circuits put in, in the listening room (all on the same dedicated phase).  So basically, 1 circuit per component.

 

I don't experience any earth loop problems.

 

Andy

 

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40 minutes ago, Jones99 said:

 By different circuit do you mean different phase? If installed correctly , equipment is functioning correctly you should have no issues running equipment on multiple circuits on the same phase. 

 

Probably getting beyond my electrical knowledge now, but I don't believe so. Single phase here?

100% tested and repeatable - as soon as projector power point was moved from a normal household circuit, onto my dedicated circuit, hum disappeared. Ground loop resolved.

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1 hour ago, andyr said:

That's interesting.  As a result of experiments I had done in my previous house (replacing 1x 20a circuit for hifi with 1x 20a for digital components and 1x 20a for analogue components), when the current house was built, I had 13x 20a circuits put in, in the listening room (all on the same dedicated phase).  So basically, 1 circuit per component.

 

I don't experience any earth loop problems.

If it wasn't for my [garage job quality] preamp, it would not be a problem at all. The Supratek may sound fantastic, but it comes with thorns associated with the legacy of its build quality. There's a reason it costs 1/4 of what the ARC preamp that I was considering costs, even if sounds better. The ARC gear is built like an aircraft and none of these subtle issues seem to faze it.

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1 hour ago, Marc said:

 

Probably getting beyond my electrical knowledge now, but I don't believe so. Single phase here?

100% tested and repeatable - as soon as projector power point was moved from a normal household circuit, onto my dedicated circuit, hum disappeared. Ground loop resolved.

Definitely not challenging your experience and great to see you resolved it .

Having multiple dedicated circuits on the same same phase should not have these issues. While it is hard to generalize it is usually components on a particular circuits ,circuit installation or the way a component is designed  which causes these issues. So definitely plan your install/setup accordingly.

I have the luxury of a dedicated phase for my audio with nothing else on it which is going the extra mile......not sure if it achieved anything as hard to do a comparison but best to go over the top in my view.

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