Other factors affecting sound


I'm building a dedicated room in my basement and was wondering if I should care about in wall electrical wiring and Receptacles. Do these generally make a big difference. I assume anything should be better than builders quality material. Are there any specific recommendations? What about whole house surge protection? Also, I have an option to install a second electrical box, is this helpful? I have a 5000sq ft house in suburban area with very few houses near me. I have clean and stable power. Recommendations appreciated. 

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Ordinary contractor wire is fine. Easily the best and most cost-effective thing you can do is run one 20A wire direct from the panel to your system outlet. What people call a dedicated line. Really just a direct line from the panel to the system. Then run another circuit for everything else in the room. All the lights and other outlets can go on another breaker. 

Because otherwise, the way homes are wired they go from outlet to outlet, each one adding connections, each connection generating micro-arcing adding noise to the line. My room started out this way. Then I changed it to a dedicated line. Big improvement. Then over the years I went to larger gauge, had the wire cryo'd, changed to 240 with a 120 step down, and some other stuff since then. Each step was an improvement. But the biggest by far was just eliminating the connections with the dedicated line. This was also by far the least expensive. 

Audiophile AC outlets are also worthwhile. Not as big a benefit as the dedicated line. But well worth it not only in terms of sound quality, but they also get a lot better grip on your power cords. Synergistic, Oyaide, Furutech or whatever. Which one you get doesn't matter nearly as much as that you do get one.

Poser conditioners, power cords, all that stuff, yes every single one of them contributes to good sound quality. Plenty of time for that later. For now just get the darn wire in there. One run. Direct. 

Make sure to install additional non-direct outlets nearby. There are all kinds of things like lights, demagnetizers, record cleaners, that need electricity but don't need to be on the system line. It is real nice to have a couple non-dedicated outlets nearby. 

We bought our house under construction, and I made the mistake of not having dedicated power lines pulled to the room (one or more 20A?). I would do that if I had a chance and do some really good outlets (Furutech or the like).

Power treatment is optional--that’s a real can of worms which will trigger a debate! Even the manufacturers disagree. Mr, Van Alstine, for example, dismisses the notion that expensive cables and power treatments are needed, and the chief designer at Benchmark has questioned the value of expensive cables and power conditioning generally, but plenty of others disagree.

On the other hand, many reviewers swear by esoteric power conditioning.