Hi all, I'm going to be running some dedicated 20 amp lines in my listening room and was wondering if there's anything special I should know about.
Dedicated power line
- Thread starter manu et deo
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AvFan
Super Member
I'm no electrician but when I added a 20amp dedicated circuit for my HT gear in my family room I was advised to keep any lights with dimmers off the dedicated circuit. We also ran the dedicated circuit from a separate sub-panel but I'm not sure that made any difference. I also recall that having your HT or stereo gear on the same circuit as appliances that cycle such as refrigerators or freezers was to be avoided. Take care to make sure your gear is all on the same ground to avoid ground loops/hum. This is most often seen in HT setups where a ground loop is caused by cable TV as they use a different ground than your house. Hope this helps.
I am getting heavy duty Hubbell receptacles, but am unsure of using two 10-2 lines or one 10-3?
AvFan
Super Member
I dislike plumbing work but will attempt it if there isn't another option, however, not electrical. There a lot of questions (Do you need 10 gauge wire for a 20 amp circuit? Is there room in the boxes to fold up the 10 gauge wire? 10/2 or 10/3? Will the receptacles accept 10 gauge wire? etc.) that are probably best answered by a licensed electrician. That way whatever is installed is safe and meets local codes and the NEC. Just my 2 cents.
I guess my questions are more directed to the audiophile part of this project. I have the technical parts under control.
SPEC2man
Are we there yet?
I ran 10-2 just for the hell of it - figured larger diameter ... less resistance ... yadda, yadda. I regretted it when installing the outlets. I wish I would have taken a trip to the hardware store with a scrap piece of 10 gauge wire and tested out the "wire to outlet" installation. I did a lot of reading on a few of the more audiophile slanted sites and in the end, I was pleased. I ran 4 duplex outlets off the one 10 gauge run. One was a higher end Furutech outlet. It was donated to me in one of my audio deals so I hung onto it, the other 3 outlets are Hubbell 20 amp hospital grade. When I replaced the panel in the garage I added an extra 8-foot long grounding rod. It's a dead quiet circuit - I don't regret it but in hind site, I would have gone with a 12-2 run. It's only about 60 feet to the panel.
Okay so I'm going to run 12 - 2 in 2 circuits, one for the amps and one for everything else. Now should I run them on separate legs of the panel? As for receptacles I got some Hubbell solid brass 20-amp as the hospital grade are all nickel-plated that I could find.
If you really want to go down the rabbit hole of no return look up “low EMF house wiring”.
I had the job of doing a total rewire of a early 1900’s millionaire’s mansion and his wife insisted I follow the latest low EMF wiring practices.
Had to look that one up
An entire cottage industry of special romex and mc wiring out there along with installation methods.
Bob
I had the job of doing a total rewire of a early 1900’s millionaire’s mansion and his wife insisted I follow the latest low EMF wiring practices.
Had to look that one up
An entire cottage industry of special romex and mc wiring out there along with installation methods.
Bob
Circuits interconnected by the audio system should ideally be fed from the same leg of the split phase power.
Also, ideally you have an electrician in the panel already, so it's a great time to ask him to strive for as equal of a balance of power as possible. Plus hope that you can get the more likely noise maker circuits to not be on the same leg as your audio system. Also he should while in the box check tightness on each and every lug connection. Very important!
When you first look at these desires remember it's more about actual typical load use than it is the breaker value. So he should be breaking out an amp clamp and you should run around for him turning a few things on and off. If something is not normally in use during the time that your are likely to be listening, then don't really attach to much importance to it.
I would consider fan motors for AC units and any lighting circuits with chopper style light dimmers as the highly undesirable. Cycling on and off higher loads next then.
Do yourself a huge favor and call a hazmat team in for any of those dangerous curly q bulbs, get those real gone. And try to buy real bulbs and avoid the modern expensive and noisy LED ones. All terrible noise makers, both radiated noise and back onto the electrical line.
Another thing for a check, tune an AM radio to a place in between stations and walk around getting it closer to things like always on devices and all wall wart supplies and see how many radiate extreme racket into the radio. Those that do should be replaced if possible.
Do the panel balancing effort and avoid shooting yourself in the foot with noise makers and you can have a nice solid footing for your audio system to stand on! I've measured with a distortion analyzer the AC distortion down around a 2 percent level for a larger sensative business doing these pretty easy to do things.
EV3
Good things all. I have an EE friend whom I can ask about calculating my main panel and my two subs. All the lights in the house are LED. Maybe I can set up a home theater / audio sub panel.
watson-greg
New Member
HiThis area is old hat to me, i will get deep later. its easy fixx and dont fall for the gimic high dollar stuff.
start with reading some links please.
09-04-2018 12:05am
please see below buy these 2 and your power will be heavanly good plus safer than ANY regen. and lots more capacity for your Amps too.
https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/ac-regenerator-2?page=2
https://www.tripplite.com/isolator-series-120v-1800w-ul60601-1-medical-grade-isolation-transformer-6...
https://www.ebay.com/itm/APC-DL5000RMT5U-Smart-UPS-5000VA-3750W-UPS-Uninterruptible-Power-Supply/153...
https://www.ebay.com/itm/APC-Smart-UPS-3000VA-2700W-RM-2U-SMT3000RM2U-New-Batteries-Free-Shipping/11...
https://assets.tripplite.com/white-paper/common-power-problems-and-power-protection-solutions-white-...
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SPEC2man
Are we there yet?
Looks like you're good to go. I think you will be pleased. As for what legs to run them on, I would speak to the electrician. My feeling would be on the leg but I'm far from an authority. The electrician I worked with thought I was nuts for being so picky, so I didn't get a ton of info or advice from him.
watson-greg
New Member
be sure to have both on same leg of your 220 main feed otherwise they may unbalanced cause they come from different winding sides of your pole pig xformer.
plus induced ground noise from panel bond to netural. o scope it if u can.
plus induced ground noise from panel bond to netural. o scope it if u can.
pskaudio
No user serviceable parts inside me...
You're fine with the Hubbell spec grade outlets. Hospital grade only adds a solvent proof material and a green dot.
The contacts inside Hubbell hospital grade (8200, 8300) are not nickel plated.
Everyone else pretty much covered the main points. My system has enough resolution that I can tell what time of day to is and whether it is peak or night. I ran all my own wiring when we redid the audio room portion of the house. Twin 20A dedicated outlets, not circuits. The NEC is one of my interests, so I am fully up to snuff on it. The code inspector was in love with my work, to blow my own horn.
For audio, more important than what you run is where you run it. Besides raw power is clean power. When I ran ours for the audio area, it was truly dedicated and isolated as well as we could: no bundling with or near other circuits; keep it away from EMI and RFI sources; and don't run it within a foot of your wired ethernet or other copper data runs. If you have to do so, run it perpendicular, never parallel to such conflicts. Bad wire placement can expose the circuit to all sorts of additional noise and interference -- and there is already enough noise and grunge on modern mains already. And it can also contaminate sensitive data lines if your electrician doesn't understand network infrastructure standards. Unless you are going to have a dedicated digital line, it is ok to bundle the two audio circuits, however (provided they share the same leg of the phase). If you separate out your digital circuit from the others, keep it away from the others at least a couple inches.
By all means, update at least your amplifier circuit to 10/2, especially if you run a higher current model. I used 10/2 for both. It is not too hard to work with and the better hospital and industrial grade outlets can handle it fine. If you are required under NEC to use tamper-proof outlets in your location, they will likely need to be special-ordered in industrial and hospital grades.
NO STAB BACK WIRING OUTLETS (not that you can do so on a 20A circuit, but don't use it anywhere). Same caution for the "quick connect" wire nuts. Both are no-nos in a high-current audio circuit, despite what the kid electricians say. Backwiring is OK, but traditional side loops are better. And be sure to use METAL boxes all the way that you can ground. If you run things right, you will use the outlets themselves for any circuit splices should you need additional outlets, and avoid the need for wire nuts on other than the ground. In mine, there were only two outlets. Always opt for PLAIN outlets in an audio installation; no AFCI or GFCI outlets. I prefer Leviton hospital grade as I can get great local pricing, but Hubbell is also first-rate.
Also be wary if your local code mandates arc-fault (AFCI) breakers, as they can still be overly sensitive to some digital gear and will nuisance trip like crazy if they are. Fight for GFCI breakers only if you are in such a jurisdiction. Best is if you can get by with your basic standard breaker. It will depend on which version of the NEC your community adopted. Try to breaker the audio circuits close to the main breaker if you can, but after any secondary transient protection device installs. Try and put your audio circuits on the opposite leg of the phase from the circuits that carry the most computer equipment activity. That leg will be far noisier, as that computer equipment tends to run filthy noisy switching supplies. You do have to balance the phase, so it will ultimately depend on your existing load profile at the panel.
Pro Tip: running dedicated circuits is a great time to also run some ethernet and/or coaxial (RF) runs to your audio area. Try to opt for a separate conduit run from a nearby pull point, and have a clean pull of CAT6 placed no closer than 12" from the nearest dedicated line drop.
Otherwise, I always behoove people to put in cascading 3-stage transient protection at the meter, at the main service panel, and finally locally at your system (and other local points) with a decent audio-grade TVSS product/conditioner/regenerator, et al. The breaker grid is constantly getting worse, and serious transients that you never see or feel can be a daily occurrence in many locations. But your equipment feels it. Death by a thousand cuts, so to speak. Nothing stinks as bad as watching your $30,000 audio system take the brunt of a hard transient.
Lastly, as a matter of personal preference, I am now very much a fan of local active noise reduction units at the outlets, the price has gotten quite reasonable for such small devices, they do not impede full current delivery in the least, and they work IMO.
Good luck!
N.B. : I noticed the OP was from nearly six months ago. My bad. I'm sure the job is done.
But I will leave up the response as future reference for those interested.
Any recommendations for those?
I just want to note that this is not entirely true. Hospital grade is more than a green dot and contact plating . . . or solvent resistance. Same for industrial grade. The NEC and other certification organizations are all over this subject.
Hospital and industrial grade outlets have much higher contact spring tension specifications than residential-grade outlets, and are rated for a higher number of insertion cycles. Contact arcing and plug blade slippage are genuine performance factors with these heavier-duty outlets. They actually do grip the plug blades more tightly and completely than spec/commercial and residential grade models do. Spec/commercial and residential grade outlets are a cut down on the food chain here.
There is a real reason a residential grade outlet is 49 cents, a spec/commercial one is $2.29, an industrial one is $4.99, and a hospital grade one is $15. This industry is not tolerant of pricing games like the retail consumer market is, and expects to get what they pay for.
Whether you want to pay $75 for one that someone later stamped "audio" on is your business. But you can never go wrong with industrial or hospital grade ones (provided they meet code re residential tamper resistance, etc.). They are worth the extra coin if you want a tight, high integrity, mains connection.
The only thing possibly better is a locking high-amperage plug/outlet, but those tend to be limited to 240v appliance service. I guess you could cobble one together on a 120v circuit and see how it works. I'm surprised that one of the usual audio salon suspects hasn't taken a commercial $25 locking 30A locking plug/outlet kit, colored it white with special logos, and marketed it for $300 as some special high-current, high end, audio gimmick to the unsuspecting.
(Electrician's Caveat: always check your local code first before dropping in any outlet)
