Dedicated line

#12 is good for 20 amps, plenty of amps for most audio gear. Standard house wiring is insulated fine for safety but has zero shelding for EMI or RFI, which is why the big buck power cable guys can draw such a following. If you have a very short run from your service entrance point, or very deep pockets, you could run 'audio grade' power cable all the way to gain EMI/RFI shielding. I recently had a dedicated line installed as well as an isolated ground. I was able to install the isolated ground myself by driving an 8' copper ground rod into the ground outside my listening room, changing the recepticals to the isolated ground variety, and running a seperate ground wire from the new receptical to the ground rod. This made an incredible improvement in depth, clarity & background silence, but there was still some A/C 60hz noise, so I had an electrician install a dedicated 20 amp circuit (with regular house wire, but in a metal conduit), leaving the isolated ground in place. Now the ONLY sounds between cuts are the sounds made by the tubes & transformers in my Cary power amps. To hear this, I have to crank the power up past 12 noon & kneel on all 4's in front of my speakers. From the listening position there is dead silence. This is with or with out my Monster HTS2000 in the line, reducing the HTS2000 to surge protection only as there is no noise left to clean up. The isolated grounding cost me about $30 & some sweat. The dedicated circuit cost $300 for the labor & materials. Hope this helps.

Johnmhuntbch, this is excellent advice, thank you! It's very possible that my option could an "audio grade" power cable. Any brand suggestion? This being for a power line about 40ft. perhaps a good value for money model would make sense. I am giving up power conditioners after I have the dedicated line and will have Powersnakes plugged directly to Wattagate outlets on the dedicated line. A fellow in another posting mentioned, "Isolation grounding means that a different wire type is used to carry the back-box ground to another grounding point on the breaker box". But in your case the isolated ground you installed has a separate ground wire from the new receptacle (outlet) to the ground rod and NOT from the dedicated circuit in panel box to the ground rod. Do I understand it right? I am meeting a recommended electrician tomorrow who's suppose to be in tune with wiring of audio equipment. A couple I spoke to (from the Yellow pages listing) advised me that the difference of a dedicated ac line on audio would be indistinguishable to the human ear! Many thanks again for sharing your experiences.

Check out the Audioquest AC-12 for house wiring cable....

Glim: Go for the dedicated line and grounding if you really wan´t to get the most out of youre gear!!!!! Those people told you not a difference are deaf and don´t know what they are talking about Don´t overlook the breaker if it´s old will add resistance to current flow.....Remember every contact point should be checked for the best possible connection. Good luck.

Thanks guys! J_k, I checked the Audioquest page: http://www.audioquest.com/theory/theory9.html#power and there were a couple of paragraphs on AC-12, sounds good. "AudioQuest AC-12 is a 12 awg x 3 cable using four separate solid18 awg OFHC conductors for hot, four for neutral and a 12 awg stranded conductor for earth. AC 12 is surprisingly flexible considering the serious ingredients inside. Brute force, superior materials and design, plus a powerful RF Stopper, explain why this cable works so very well. UL and CSA." Wonder what's the cost? JPS also had a page on Power AC 8AWG Home AC wire. Before they removed the price on page it was $30 per/ft. with a minimum 100ft order. This is over my budget of $1,000 for the project. Since I am not spending on the power conditioners I figure this would be alright if I am not moving house before 5 years! Sol322 I agree, I think dedicated lines help compliment powercords if they do the job of helping shield against RF. Thanks for reminding me about the breakers, I will have brand new breakers. With an investment like this I want to do it right. But I am still thinking about the grounding source that Johnmhuntbch mentioned. If I run the ground from the circuit box to outlet it would be making full use of a cable like AudioQuest. If a separate ground line is run to the OUTLET then essentially the ground on the AC-12 would be "wasted" (although the cable housing would still shield the background noise)….hmmm. A separate ground sounds sensible, as it will be isolated from the interference from other outlets. Any thoughts?