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 4 responses by jea48


Mother earth’s ground connection (example ground rod/s) main purpose is for lightning protection.
You can drive as many ground rods as you want as long as they are all tied together and one wire is extended and connected to the main electrical service neutral conductor. The NEC considers all the connected together ground rods as one grounding electrode. 


Again, The earth does not possess some magical mystical power that sucks nasties from an audio system.



Grounding Myths

From Henry W. Ott’s book "Electromagnetic Compatibility Engineering"

3.1.7 Grounding Myths

More myths exist relating to the field of grounding than any other area of electrical engineering. The more common of these are as follows:

1. The earth is a low-impedance path for ground current. False, the impedance of the earth is orders of magnitude greater than the impedance of a copper conductor.

2. The earth is an equipotential. False, this is clearly not true by the result of (1 above).

3. The impedance of a conductor is determined by its resistance. False, what happened to the concept of inductive reactance?

4. To operate with low noise, a circuit or system must be connected to an earth ground. False, because airplanes, satellites, cars and battery powered laptop computers all operate fine without a ground connection. As a mater of fact, an earth ground is more likely to be the cause of noise problem. More electronic system noise problems are resolved by removing (or isolating) a circuit from earth ground than by connecting it to earth ground.

5. To reduce noise, an electronic system should be connected to a separate “quiet ground” by using a separate, isolated ground rod. False, in addition to being untrue, this approach is dangerous and violates the requirements of the NEC (electrical code/rules).

6. An earth ground is unidirectional, with current only flowing into the ground. False, because current must flow in loops, any current that flows into the ground must also flow out of the ground somewhere else.

7. An isolated AC power receptacle is not grounded. False, the term “isolated” refers only to the method by which a receptacle is grounded, not if it is grounded.

8. A system designer can name ground conductors by the type of the current that they should carry (i.e., signal, power, lightning, digital, analog, quiet, noisy, etc.), and the electrons will comply and only flow in the appropriately designated conductors. Obviously false."

Henry W. Ott

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the_treble_with_tribbles38 posts  

05-14-2020  
 8:24pm


@jea48 mentioned using Al wire instead of Cu, I would be interested to learn why.
@ the_treble_with_tribbles

Copy of post please.


Jim
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That sounds like old knob and tube wiring.  Is this what it looked like?  
https://www.google.com/search?source=univ&tbm=isch&q=knob+and+tube+wiring&sa=X&ved=2...  

If it was knob and tube the wire was more than likely tinned hard drawn solid copper wire.    

Jim

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If you have to use conduit see if 2 conductor with ground MC aluminum armor cable is allowed. (Actually aluminum armor MC cable is better than Romex for feeding audio equipment.

@ the_treble_with_tribbles


I assume this is what you are referencing. MC (Metal Clad) is a cable that has copper insulated conductors housed in an armor metal housing. MC cable is manufactured with a steel armor and an AL (aluminum) armor. The conductors are available in solid core copper wire or stranded wire.


Example of MC cable.
https://www.homedepot.com/p/AFC-Cable-Systems-10-2-x-125-ft-Solid-MC-Lite-Cable-2107-32-AFC/20501550...


Middle Atlantic Products.


Integrating Electronic Equipment and Power into Rack Enclosures
Optimized Power Distribution and Grounding for Audio, Video and Electronic Systems AC


Power Wiring Types (cont’d) Metal Clad (MC)is manufactured in both steel and aluminum with twisted conductors that help reduce AC magnetic fields. Although the steel jacket helps reduce AC magnetic fields, the twisting of conductors has the greatest effect on reducing these fields. Another benefit is the constant symmetry of the phase conductors with respect to the grounding conductor which greatly reduces voltage induction on the grounding wire. (NEC article:330)

Two conductor plus 1 ground MC (Metal Clad)is a good choice for Non-Isolated Ground A/V systems. MC cable contains a safety grounding conductor (wire). The three conductors in the MC cable (Line, Neutral and Ground) are uniformly twisted, reducing both induced voltages on the ground wire and radiated AC magnetic fields. The NEC article 250.118 (10)a prohibits the use of this cable for isolated ground circuits because the metal jacket is not considered a grounding conductor, and it is not rated for fault current.

EDIT:
For larger conductor MC cable you can buy it with stranded copper or stranded AL conductors.


Jim