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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 2 responses by the_treble_with_tribbles

the_treble_with_tribbles
43 posts
 
@jea48

It was the 5/8/2020 at 5:38 p.m. post:

" So if the AHJ, (Authority Having Jurisdiction), in your area requires conduit must be used do not install more than one dedicated circuit in a conduit. If you do there is a good chance you will end up having ground loop hum problems. 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.

Romex, just a guess, is probably the most widely used though to feed audio equipment. There are some best practices that should be followed for the installation of Romex though."

So maybe I read it wrong, as a non-electrician? So is "2 conductor with ground MC aluminum armor cable" actually copper wire with the armor clad being the aluminum component? I read it as aluminum cable with armor, and I did find one place selling it (with stranded aluminum conductors).

To clarify too, I wasn’t critical at all, as jea48 is well-known as an expert.
the_treble_with_tribbles
43 posts
 
Definitely appreciate @spenav and the link to Mr. Galbo’s recommendations. I’ve always been wanting the 240V circuits, but everybody says that’s beyond extreme. But they do it other places, so why not in the U.S.?

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

Now, not to be a nattering nabob of negativity, but what are people doing about the NEC rule regarding tamper resistant receptacles unless the receptacle is higher than 5.5 feet? I understand the NEC thinking, but if you don’t have any 3-year-old kids in the house, it seems a bit beyond extreme to me. I believe even if you do the work yourself you’re supposed to get a permit, and an inspection, and I think non-tamper-resistant receptacles would be marked unacceptable.

I’m not an expert on the NEC, but I’ve done a fair bit of studying for installing my PV system. But it is my understanding that a 20-amp breaker gets a 20-amp receptacle, or 15-amp receptacle if it is the only one, no matter what gauge wire is used. I know oversizing wire is allowed, as I did this on the PV system, but you also have to oversize the ground too, from what I remember.
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