Your 4 lights, 11 outlets is only a little worse than I had. Compared to that one direct line will be noticeably better. If your system is good at all you will hear it. This isn't expensive at all. One 20A breaker, one outlet, however much wire you need. Half the cost will be a Synergistic Blue or Orange outlet, if you decide to go that route. Which I would. Or you can go the Full Monty like me and hard wire right into the conditioner. See that cable coming out of the wall? 😁😁 https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367
Dedicated line questions...
Did a search, but can’t come up with a good answer. I am considering the install of a dedicated line. The general consensus is a 20amp circuit. How does this rectify with a full system designed around 15amp components/cords. I already have PS audio receptacles, and have upgraded/cleaned up all the other outlets on the current circuit, but it is still noisy. Would installing a 20amp circuit require a refit of gear or just 15-20 amp power cords? I don’t run big mono’s and really only need one line. Would a dedicated 15 suffice? Yeah, fairly clueless in this realm.
Showing 3 responses by millercarbon
Back in the day, early 1990's, when wire was a lot cheaper than today (and I knew a lot less than I know now) I ran mine like this only with even more overkill, 4 ga wire. Which probably equates to 80A. Don't know. Don't want to know! lol! Point is I have done this a couple times now, so that I know from actual experience just how much difference it makes. The biggest improvement by far is simply going direct, eliminating all the outlet-to-outlet connections of a normal circuit. This is very noticeable, but in the big scheme of things only about as big as upgrading to a Synergistic Research outlet or fuse. If that. Going from there to larger gauge wire, even monster overkill like mine, is not that much more. For what it costs nowadays, I about had a coronary looking at what copper costs these days. You could probably buy an outlet and a fuse and be way better off. In terms of pure sound quality for sure, and even more so if factoring in time and effort. Dedicated lines are more a long term investment kind of thing. If you are going to be there a very long time, and especially if you have long term upgrade plans, then its totally worth it. I have no regrets. But a lot of guys go into it like its some big deal, when really its just one more item on a very very incredibly unbelievably unimaginably long list of things that matter. https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367 |
20A is indeed what you want. How this "rectifies" with 15A components is simple. A is for amps, is for current. In the case of the dedicated line 20A is the maximum safe steady state current draw on that line. It does not mean forcing 20A into everything plugged in. It simply means that 20A is safely available. Your components by the way are not 15A either. Not a one of them. Something like a CD player, phono stage or preamp draws only a very few amps. Power amps can draw more but even a very powerful amp comes nowhere near 15A current draw, except maybe for a brief moment when first turned on. One of the bigger power hogs in a room is a home theater projector, which if it has say a 500 watt bulb and runs at 120V then that's about 5A. You want the 20A circuit because even though you don't need it in terms of steady state power draw you do want it because music is lots of very brief transient surges and the larger wire handles this better. Also the difference in cost is insignificant. Everything else, outlets, power cords, conditioner, is all the same 15 or 20. |