What's 10 Volts between friends?


Moving into a new house 3 1/2 years ago really re-kindled my interest in music and audio because it was a move that put me about 5 minutes from work and greatly reduced my out-of-town travel time, meaning that I had a lot more opportunity to listen. It also meant going from "perfect" power to both a power grid that isn't as good and a house that is wired like crap. Watching the volt readings on my surge protector, it dips as I turn more gear on, quite regulary running below 110 volts. Way too much stuff on one circuit.

Yesterday, I finally had the wiring reworked and some dedicated circuits brought down (of course, this is all at the complete opposite end of the house from the breaker box, so it wasn't just a couple hundred bucks). Now, turning on the gear only barely fazes the volt reading (it still does somewhat), and CRIMINY! what a difference! To say that everything is crisper, cleaner, etc. only begins to describe the improvement.

If you have problems with your power and have not yet run dedicated power lines to your system, do so as your next upgrade - you won't regret it. -Kirk

kthomas

Showing 2 responses by glen

Amen to that brother. I still insist that dedicated power was my best tweak to date.
John,

IMHO If you run dedicated neutrals (One per hot) this will eliminate any noise that could bleed over from the other bus in the panel. I would also much rather use an isolated ground all the way back to the main service rather than lifting the ground completely. This brings up a safety issue, which is also a code violation (National Electrical Code)

I admit we do some wacky things in the name of Hi Fi but lets not get to carried away.

Most Electricians would never lift the ground like that. And if they would, I wouldn't use them in my house :^)