Advice- wiring for dedicated sound room

Depending on how serious you want to get, you might want to have a 20 amp line for each amplifier and two seperate 15 or 20 amp lines for the rest of the gear. It has been recommended that digital gear ( such as CD player / transport / DAC, DVD, tuner, etc..) be placed on its' own line rather than share with other analogue components like your preamp, TT, etc... This should give you plenty of outlets and current to play with.

One thing to think about is outlet placement. If your running monoblocks or ever intend to go that route, keep in mind that you'll need outlets away from the rest of the gear. You might also want to have outlets running up the wall in a vertical array where you'll have your rack set up. This can make your installation MUCH neater due to the lack of excess power cords dangling all over. Something else to keep in mind is that you want all of these various circuits tied to the same grounding point.

In terms of wiring, i would suggest 10 gauge throughout to help minimize voltage drop. Others have suggested the use of an external breaker / fuse box outside of the rest of the house wiring i.e. a seperate box "jumped" off of the mains. I know that Bob Bundus has played with breakers vs fuses, so i'll let him share his experience in that area.

From what i've gathered, there are some Pass & Seymour outlets that seem to offer the most bang for the buck. You can find more specific info such as part number over in the Cable Asylum. Large contact areas with good tension in terms of holding the plugs in.

Keep in mind that it easier to go "crazy" now than to do it later once the walls, etc... are all installed. Good luck and hope your new house is everything that you hope it will be and more. Sean
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Glen, thanks for sharing your info. It's always good to hear from a professional. I would like to share some of my findings in regards to some of your statements though.

As to your comments about #12 being fine for runs up to 150', i would disagree with that. I have seen VERY noticeable voltage drops at well under 30 amps of draw and for less than 8' of an 8 gauge cable. I would assume that a hard draw of 12 - 15 amps using #12 for the length of run that you mentioned would result in both a measurable voltage drop due to series resistance and dielectric losses and distortion of the AC sine wave. I think that those reasons are why some folks have such good luck with items like the PS Audio Power Plant and other "power regenerators". All of the "losses" and "distortions" are kind of "eaten up" by the regenerators and "reincarnated" as "clean power".

While most folks would think that a LONG run of wire like that is next to impossible in a "reasonable" sized house, they don't take into account that the wiring is typically routed rather indirectly and can take some rather strange turns before getting to the final destination.

I hope to bring home one of my scopes sometime soon and do some measurements on one of my systems. I'm strictly talking in terms of the electricity going into the system and how it compares to what is at the breaker box. In the meantime, i'm still assuming that overkill is "better" and that "too much is not enough" in terms of heavy wiring and short runs working best. Sean
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