Dedicated 20 amp circuit - Electrician laughed!


I brought my electrician out to my house today to show him where I would like to install a dedicated 20a circuit for my system.  He laughed and said that's the stupidest thing he's heard and laughs when people talk about it.  It said, if you're going to do it, you have to have it separately grounded (shoving a new 8 foot rod into the ground) but even then, he sees no way there can be an audible improvement.

Now, he's not just an electrician though. He rebuilds tube amps on the side and tears apart amps and such all the time so he's quite well versed in audio electronics and how they operate.

He basically said anyone who thinks they hear a difference is fooling themselves.  

Personally, I'm still not sure, I'm no engineer, my room's not perfect, and I can't spend hours on end critical listening...  But, he does kinda pull me farther to the "snake oil" side and the "suggestive hearing" side (aka, you hear an improvement because you want to hear it).

I'm not taking a side here but I thought it was interesting how definitive he was that this not only WILL not make a difference but ALMOST CANNOT make a difference. 
dtximages

Showing 1 response by quincy

I believe your electrician friend missed the point.
When I ran my system on a shared house circuit the power drain was excessive and things would start to brown out.  Especially around Xmas when the tree was up and all sorts of electric holiday decorations were lit.  I ran my own dedicated 20 amp line to the stereo and and no more outside draw issues occured.  Nothing sounded better but my power hungry all tube system was satisfied!  I think its the smart thing to do, and very low cost, sans the cryogenic hospital grade quad outlets.