Dedicated line

Thanks very much, Sol322 that's what I will do and will perhaps post the results on this thread in a couple of weeks. Does anyone know where I can get AudioQuest AC-12?

Johnmhuntbch, this is excellent advice, thank you! It's very possible that my option could an "audio grade" power cable. Any brand suggestion? This being for a power line about 40ft. perhaps a good value for money model would make sense. I am giving up power conditioners after I have the dedicated line and will have Powersnakes plugged directly to Wattagate outlets on the dedicated line. A fellow in another posting mentioned, "Isolation grounding means that a different wire type is used to carry the back-box ground to another grounding point on the breaker box". But in your case the isolated ground you installed has a separate ground wire from the new receptacle (outlet) to the ground rod and NOT from the dedicated circuit in panel box to the ground rod. Do I understand it right? I am meeting a recommended electrician tomorrow who's suppose to be in tune with wiring of audio equipment. A couple I spoke to (from the Yellow pages listing) advised me that the difference of a dedicated ac line on audio would be indistinguishable to the human ear! Many thanks again for sharing your experiences.

Thanks guys! J_k, I checked the Audioquest page: http://www.audioquest.com/theory/theory9.html#power and there were a couple of paragraphs on AC-12, sounds good. "AudioQuest AC-12 is a 12 awg x 3 cable using four separate solid18 awg OFHC conductors for hot, four for neutral and a 12 awg stranded conductor for earth. AC 12 is surprisingly flexible considering the serious ingredients inside. Brute force, superior materials and design, plus a powerful RF Stopper, explain why this cable works so very well. UL and CSA." Wonder what's the cost? JPS also had a page on Power AC 8AWG Home AC wire. Before they removed the price on page it was $30 per/ft. with a minimum 100ft order. This is over my budget of $1,000 for the project. Since I am not spending on the power conditioners I figure this would be alright if I am not moving house before 5 years! Sol322 I agree, I think dedicated lines help compliment powercords if they do the job of helping shield against RF. Thanks for reminding me about the breakers, I will have brand new breakers. With an investment like this I want to do it right. But I am still thinking about the grounding source that Johnmhuntbch mentioned. If I run the ground from the circuit box to outlet it would be making full use of a cable like AudioQuest. If a separate ground line is run to the OUTLET then essentially the ground on the AC-12 would be "wasted" (although the cable housing would still shield the background noise)….hmmm. A separate ground sounds sensible, as it will be isolated from the interference from other outlets. Any thoughts?

Yesterday, I installed 2 dedicated lines. Unfortunately, I had no success obtaining info on an audio powerline. Being in Canada, I needed a powerline that had UL and CSA approval due to insurance purposes. Home Depot came to the rescue. I ended with a Carol 12/3 CSA and UL approved electrical line (2x 22ft run), two 20amp Square D breaker (1 for each line), 1 flat ground plate and a 6-gauge ground line (20ft unshielded run from circuit breaker box to ground plate buried 24inches deep), both ground from dedicated lines were connected to the ground plate. In addition, I used 2 wattagate outlets. Everything was brand new. After connecting my equipment to the dedicated lines I notice that there was a hum/buzz emitting through the speakers. It was not pronounced when music was being played but very noticeable when the equipment was at idle. I cross checked by turning off my input source and putting the volume at maximum setting; sure enough the hum was louder. Next I set my pre-amp to mute, there was no hum. Other connection scenarios yielded similar results; through powerline conditioner or direct from my powersnakes to the outlets. Just to ensure it was not my equipment (never had this problem so far, I use tubes and I think they are in fairly good shape) my final check was to plug everything to the generic lines/outlets (shared power outlets WITHOUT ground connection). The hum DISAPPEARED! My second issue is when a florescent lamp connected to a common line/outlet is turned on and my system is affected with a loud click from the speakers. It's louder turning it on then off. I test with a normal light bulb lamp and there were no interferences. I thought at a dedicated line being isolated will not be affected by other outlets. With this hum, presumably ground feedback, I can't tell if the background noise was eliminated. What am I doing incorrectly? Appreciate any help and advice you may have to get rid of the problem. Many thanks.

Thanks for your responses everyone. I am very grateful, I realise that this is truly a great hobby. I have printed all your responses to my questions regarding the problem hum I am experiencing and reading them carefully. I am going to plug my solidstate (ss) system to do some testing. I don't want to do this on my tube equipment for fear of damaging them as I would have to switch on/off many times to try some of the suggestions. Sol322, the dedicated line was installed by a professional. Pending the outcome of the ss test, I will get him back for any other required adjustments, as this is definitely NOT my area of expertise. Here are more details on how I connected my equipment. TO DEDICATED LINE- 2 scenarios that caused the hum to occur 1) ALL equipment through a power conditioner to one outlet 2) ALL equipment directly to the newly installed dedicated outlets. I have pre/power/CD so I used only 3 outlets. TO COMMON LINE- Same connection as above scenarios but this time to common outlets. Note my common line has no ground connection. Result is NO HJM! I will post ss results, sometime tomorrow, July 11. Many thanks again to all. Best regards.

The humming noise in my system was SUCCESSFULLY ELIMINATED today!!! Here's the sequence of events. After getting similar results from the ss equipment I called the electrician back to re-check the connections. Here's how the problem was identified. The fuse box is located in the basement and in order to lay the dedicated ground wire he ran the BARE ground wire from the circuit box to the exterior of the house through the ceiling. Inadvertently while pushing the ground wire through it got CROSSED WITH THE CABLE TV WIRE also located between floors in the ceiling! It took a loooong time to come to this conclusion. We conducted several tests and notice that when the dedicated ground line was disconnected the hum disappeared. I then told him that we should lay a new ground line this time burying the ground plate deeper. While he was pulling the ground wire from the ceiling we discovered that it was tangled with the cable line in the ceiling, note there's a cable splitter and that must have been the point of contact, bare ground wire to splitter. My conclusion is that the hum was caused by a ground loop that occurred between the dedicated ground wire and the cable wire. The ground wire is now not touching any other wire and the hum has disappeared. Thank goodness. This problem was driving me crazy. What do I think about the sound? For now I am just RELIEVED and happy that there's no humming noise. I can't objectively comment about the sound because I changed my whole set of tubes in the pre & power before I disconnected my tube equipment just to make sure it was not a run-off tube making the hum. I will put the old set on again and listen in the next few days. Will post my findings on this thread next week. A very BIG THANK YOU to all of you with much appreciation for your kindness and great advice. Best regards.

Following is a summary of the result of tests made on my newly installed dedicated power AC line. Different combinations tested: pre/power/cd player plugged direct or through a power conditioner (PC) to the dedicate line. Best results for my system is cd player and pre-amp plugged direct to dedicate line and power amp through PC to dedicated line. Benefits: reduction of background noise and improved resolution. Very good return on cost / benefit ratio. I ended spending slightly less that $500 (12/3 AWG, ground plate with 6 gauge bare ground wire, 2 Square D breaker, 2 Wattagate outlets and electrician cost), the amount would have been greater if I had use an audio grade electrical line but the cost / benefit ratio would diminish in returns. On a scale of 1 to 5 this is a 3.5 stars upgrade to sound quality and a 4.5 stars upgrade in value for money. If the same amount of $ was spent on upgrading my equipment I don't think I would have achieved an equivalent return. I would certainly recommend this upgrade; perhaps a 10 AWG would yield better results.