Will dedicated power lines eliminate ground loops

Try to use a Commercial electrician, they will have a better grasp on dedicated circuits for your application. Have him run a conduit to your proposed location, have him pull a seperate neutral with every hot(#12 is fine).

Then ask him to pull a dirty ground and an isolated ground. He'll probably ask you if your using I.G. receptacles? (just stare blankly into his eyes).

Explian that your trying to isolate every piece of gear from every other piece. If he's really good he'll ask if you want an isolated ground bar in your panel. Just smile and he'll understand. Then glance over and say, Do you think you can isolate the ground all the way back to the ground rod?

He'll either get a big grin on his face or jump in his truck and drive away cursing.

Personally I ran a 1-1/4" conduit to a 100 amp sub panel just outside my listening room. Then I installed an isolated ground bar and a dirty ground bar at my service panel and the new sub-panel. Next I pulled the feeders between the two panels (2-hots, 1-neutral, 1-dirty ground, 1-clean ground) Then I took six dedicated circuits with dedicated neutrals and two grounds up to my outlets (using smurf pipe). I custom ordered White I.G.industrial grade recptacles to match the decor of the room. (I did not cryo them because I'm lazy) I tied one hot one neutral and the Isolated ground to each receptacle. I tied the dirty ground to the box, hooked it all up and WALA!.

I also upgraded my service to 200 amps and cleaned up some of the house circuitry problems during the course of this work.

I'll eventually connect the Isoated ground bar to the ground rod when I have time.

This is the most bang you'll ever get for the buck IMO and in my 22 years working as an electrician in Silicon Valley.

Good luck!

Glen: Am I reading this right? That your I.G. recepticles are "star grounded" to an isolated ground bar that is not (currently) referenced to ground?

I've tied the I.G. bar to the panel ground bar with a jumper at my main panel temporarily :^(

This has been an on going project, and I still have a few loose ends to tie up before I can complete the true isolated grounding.

I'm not big on lifting or floating the ground.

But that's just me :^)

The short answer is: not necessarily. Try to minimize the number of dedicated circuits. Ground loop hum probability increases with each grounded power cord you plug into different outlets on different circuits. Sounds counter-intuitive, but one circuit for all your gear gives the greatest possibility of eliminating ground loops. That's because all of your grounded plugs terminate at the same point in the circuit - preventing ground planes from being created.

If you plug each component into its own dedicated circuit, you now have multiple circuits with different lengths (from the breaker, the wiring and the power cords)creating a ground plane - a "rectangle" of wires. These different lengths have different resistance and with that come voltage potentials created along the ground planes. This causes induced stray currents in the ground wiring (or conduit or BX) - the cause of ground loop hums.

IMO, add additional circuits only if absolutely necessary. I have three circuits: two for mono block amps (due to power draw) and one for the entire front end. No problems whatsoever with ground loops since all three circuits terminate in the same gangbox resulting in all outlets haven the same ground conductor length. I'm sure others will have differing opinions, but this is what works for me.

Max, lifting the ground is far better done NOT at the male AC via a cheater plug but by USING an existing PC's shield as a floating ground and lifting at the component end (IEC) to further possibily reduce noise.............
Interesting thread. I usuallly advise running a MAX of 4 dedicated lines: 2 for big monos, one for all remaining analog, and one for digital, and then reduce the number to three if only one amp OR the digital can remain on a dirty preexisting house line, or two if both of the above, or just one dedicated line if the system just comprises an integrated amp for the dedicated line and the CDP on the vestigial house line. As long as the dirty digital is kept well-isolated from the low-level analog pre.
Nice posts, guys.