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Dedicated Power Lines

Been thinking about running dedicated Romex circuits from my circuit breaker box for my rig. No . . . I decline paying for specialty wire, Romex will do. The question is how many discreet lines and the amp capability of each line. I'm still trying to figure out how to do the installation in accordance with Code, without tearing my finished basement apart. For that, I'll consult a licensed electrician.

My rig consists of the following gear: (1) self powered sub that is rated at 1500 "Class D" watts; 4500 watts on a surge; (2) ARC tube CDP; (3) ARC tube line stage; (4) ARC tube power amp rated at 120 wpc - supposedly draws 700-800 watts when driven hard; (5) ARC tube phono pre; and VPI TT. I have a large screen plasma TV and a DVD player. I think that stuff can run off the house circuits.

Right now, everything I just listed is sucking juice off the same line. I gotta believe no good is coming from that set-up. Funny story -- one day my kid was playing Rosetta. I think it's a band that plays music, or at least that what my kid says. Tons of bass. When the band kicked into "low gear," first the basement lights dimmed, then the circuit breaker tripped.

Oh, my house is tied into the utility lines with a 100 amp service. If I change that out, that's the next project. But not right now. Other than Rosetta, no other power delivery problems noted.

Thanks
bifwynne

Showing 5 responses by coxhaus

coxhaus
231 posts
 
I came across this thread and thought I would post something a little different than what other people are doing. I decided to isolate my digital from my analog.

I have 3 30 amp 220 volt circuits feeding my stereo with 10 gage wire in my new dedicated room. The circuits are feeding 3 power isolators two 3 kilowatt isolators and one 5 kilowatt isolator. The isolators are transformer based units. The 5 kilowatt isolator has two 110 volt feeds, one for analog and one for digital. The 3 kilowatt isolators each feed 1 mono block amp. I am using hospital grade copper plugs to feed all my gear.

This seems to work well for my system. The isolators are located under my house on a concrete slab off so I don’t hear the hum. I like using 220 volt better so you don’t have to run a neutral line to the isolator. Seems like to me the neutral line is where a lot of the noise comes from.
coxhaus
231 posts
 
How is this different than people who plug into multiple plugs which are in different phases of their breaker box? Most people do not know what phase every plug is in their house nor do they go to the trouble to figure it out.

The sound is great from the isolators.
coxhaus
231 posts
 

I think if I understand it, if you use both phases of power at home then if you cross the hots you can produce 240volts. I would think anybody who uses 220 power conditioning is subject to this and anybody who uses multiple plugs from different phases are all in the same boat.
You are advocating only using one phase for stereo use.
coxhaus
231 posts
 
I also live in an old house and upgraded my service. I had my service upgraded to a 250 amp service with new breaker box and what I think helped the most is changing to new 0/0 wire from the pole to the new breaker box. The new feed to the house is a much larger wire.
coxhaus
231 posts
 
Jea48,
I finally did the test on the hots of my isolated power. Maybe I was lucky or the transformers just handle it but when I tested the 120V loads together 2 at a time they all read 0 volts.
lee
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