Dedicated 20 amp circuit - Electrician laughed!


I brought my electrician out to my house today to show him where I would like to install a dedicated 20a circuit for my system.  He laughed and said that's the stupidest thing he's heard and laughs when people talk about it.  It said, if you're going to do it, you have to have it separately grounded (shoving a new 8 foot rod into the ground) but even then, he sees no way there can be an audible improvement.

Now, he's not just an electrician though. He rebuilds tube amps on the side and tears apart amps and such all the time so he's quite well versed in audio electronics and how they operate.

He basically said anyone who thinks they hear a difference is fooling themselves.  

Personally, I'm still not sure, I'm no engineer, my room's not perfect, and I can't spend hours on end critical listening...  But, he does kinda pull me farther to the "snake oil" side and the "suggestive hearing" side (aka, you hear an improvement because you want to hear it).

I'm not taking a side here but I thought it was interesting how definitive he was that this not only WILL not make a difference but ALMOST CANNOT make a difference. 
dtximages

Showing 1 response by hennigan

I agree with the electrician. If your amplifier and other equipment is built with well-designed power supplies, noise on the power line will be filtered far below audibility.

Furthermore, optimizing the last few feet of wire and connections from your service panel to your listening room will do nothing to affect the tens or hundreds of miles of transmission and distribution lines from the power station to your house.

If you can hear artifacts due to power line noise, blame your gear for poor PSRR, not the wire between your outlet and the service panel.