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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 itsjustme

itsjustme
682 posts
 
Millercarbon basically hit all the highlights so I’ll say little:

  1. It makes a small but meaningful difference
  2. Must be a home run
  3. Most likely reason/benefit is minimizing connections along the way, and interference from other devices on the same circuit
  4. Next thing to do is put a good noise filter (not necessarily a surge suppressor - that has a different function) on the line. An Iso-tansformer is even better.
  5. Also put a filter between noisy digital components and everything else
  6. The ground is a great idea. Its actually next on my hit list. In the mean time if everything is uniformly grounded to the same spot, and in the proper phase, even a noisy ground will have minimal impact because **everything will float with the same noise** This makes the differential noise close to zero. Ground differentials and loops are the worst.


All this is, in true high end terms, pretty cheap.

It all actually makes engineering sense, although it may be a small difference to most. he has lots of experience, but is likely not an EE. I am. Hell my electrician didn’t **really** know how dimmers worked. He just knew how to install them and the glitches. I explained.

I’d do it. Oh wait, I did.
G

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