Dedicated line questions

Hi Korn and Craig. Craig has covered most of the points well. Note that if you put a dedicated AC in you will have to get good AC cords for ALL of your components. You need the AC cords to provide some common mode rejection, and you may even need to use a filter. Using standard cords with a dedicated AC can be excruciatingly bright and grainy. On the subject of breakers versus fuses - I have found the old style ceramic fuses to sound the best. Craig found the reverse was true, which could be a difference in the power supply, or could relate to Craig using a different style of fuse to the one I am using. Craig is right to emphasise the value of good grounding.

Garfish or Redkiwi, you mentioned a dedicated ground ("3 6 feet copper rods within 10 feet of outlets") for your outlets. I have two dedicated 20A outlets (1 for source and 1 for amp, need a 2nd for amps now that I use mono's). I do not have dedicated grounds. Do you just run the ground for the Romex directly to a dedicated grounding rod? Do you need a separate grounding rod for each dedicated outlet or could 2 amp outlets be connected to the same grounding rod? Does it need to be so close (10 feet) to the dedicated outlets? What kind of improvement can be expected from dedicated grounding rods? BTW, are you really serious about directionality of power wire? That seems hopelessly difficult to test when you have over 50' of wire to pull. Thanks, Greysquirrel.

note: buy PS Audio 300 and be done with power problems.

Greysquirrel, regarding your question about "star" and dedicated grounding, the way I got there, was to hire an electrical contractor who had done quite a lot of commercial work, so the wiring I asked for was not unusual, due to his experience with computer rooms and hi tech electronic assembly areas. The "star grounding" method is not strictly legal in our city, as the local electrical code here asks that ALL the grounds be tied together at the electrical box. What I have done, and suggest for you, actually exceeds this code, because it offers safer, multiple grounds. However, because it does not "precisely fit" the rules, is not always easy to hire a professional electrician to get it done. For Star grounding to work, each dedicated run for the audio system must be in PVC, or no conduit at all. The traditional metal outlet housings and metal conduit used in electrical work, automatically tie all the grounds together, back to the electrical panel. DO NOT connect your stereo's dedicated outlets to the main or sub electrical panel. Instead, a SEPARATE ground must be run from each of the stereo's Hubbell computer grade outlets, to the star grounding system. This star system consists of a superior ground plain, that plain requires three copper rods deep in the ground outside of your house (8 ft. or longer, each). This triple ground plain is tied together, and then tied to a single bar under the house. ALL of the stereo's separate TNN wire runs from the individual dedicated circuits tie to that single bar. The purpose of this scheme is so the stereo does not share its ground plane with the remainder of the house's electrical panel. This removes all the ground noise generated from appliances, motors, TV, air conditioning, computers, and other electrical appliances in your home that normally get into your system. The noise floor drops tremendously! If you want to go even farther, have a separate eight gauge copper run pulled from the drop, and run that to a 100 amp 220V panel, and from there you can run Hubbell twist lock 220V outlets to use with high end amps that are capable of running in either 220V or 110V. The Hubbell twist locks can be "split" into two 110V, or run as a single 220V. Barring that, the option of running single Hubbells, as all of us have suggested on this posting, is a superb choice. If you choose to use the method I suggest, and you later add additional dedicated outlets to your stereo, the bar under the house is ready to be tapped into, where the other stereo grounds already reside. This is nice, as it keeps all the "star" grounds in the stereo together and ready for future upgrades.

I´ve found an improvement over bare wire connection (connecting the lines to breakers and main blade switches using cable terminals.(tin plated for less maintenance or pure copper that will require corrosion cleaning). You can use larger than nominal cable awg terminal and make a small loop of the stripped cable, put it inside the terminal and solder it very well. You have this way far more contact area and solder all over the cable surface. I used lead free solder with silver content. The flat surface of the cable terminal providesa very good contact with the bolt and flat metal underneath it. Or simpler maximize the bare wire contact by using the loop trick. Picky I know but it´s been good for me.