Dedicated line questions

Hi Korn; I just had a dedicated AC system run to my stereo room. I had an electrician do it because I needed an exterior submain breaker box with four 20 amp breakers put in. The submain was fed by a 50 amp 220 volt breaker from the main breaker panel. I used about 50 feet of 6 gauge power cable. From the submain, there were four separate lines run to four Hubbell outlets. Total cost of this installation was $850. including the $50. for the outlets. As I learned from Redkiwi, a dedicated system will lower the noise floor a lot, but often causes an unwanted brightness that can be difficult to deal with. I ended up putting in Synergistic Research Master Couplers on my amp and pre-amp, and that took care of the brightness. As to your questions: If you have some electrical knowledge and are just running in a single line form a 15 or 20 amp, 110 volt breaker at your main breaker panel you could probably do it yourself, but just routing wire can be difficult. If you plan on multiple outlets as I did, and are coming off a 220 volt 50 amp breaker that needs to be stepped down to 110 volt, you need an electrician-- IMHO. I'd also note that the mainline wire is "directional" as far as music is concerned (I also learned this from Redkiwi), ie it sounds different each direction. So, I tested the wire by listening to it each direction. The first direction produced overly soft, flat, dull, and uninvolving music, while the opposite direction was much better balanced and was the direction of choice. You can only determine this by actually doing the listening tests. Also, Redkiwi (from New Zealand, where they use 240 volt AC) recommended using an old fashioned fuse box rather than breakers. I tried it then listened, and it just didn't sound good, eg music had a prominent mid-bass hump. The advantage of the fuses is that they sound better-- in New Zealand, and that they can be removed and cleaned, whereas breakers can't be cleaned (except for the exterior contacts). But 20 amp breakers only cost $7-8. ot replace. Note: a really important part of a ded. system is a dedicated ground-- I had the electricians drive into the ground three 6 ft. copper rods within 10 ft. of my ded. outlets, and they used a stout grounding cable. Redkiwi, if you read this post, please feel free to comment and/or critique because I'm pretty new to this subject too. Or anyone else also. I mentioned Redkiwi so much because he helped me get my ded. AC system installed, and provided much beneficial information (and support). I should note that my ded. system-- once tweaked, sounds excellent, eg much lower noise floor, blacker blacks, more apparent detail, and dynamics. Try an electrical supply house for bulk power cord. Good Luck Korn. Craig

Sorry Greysquirrel, but the mainline wire really is directional. Redkiwi suggested it, and so I tried it myself and got the differences in direction as noted in my above post. Albert Porter covered grounding better than I could. My electricians just grounded the sub-main panel that had my four dedicated lines into it, and as I understand it, the closer ther better, but closeness of grounding is not necessary. It's hard to separate the effects of the grounding versus the dedicated lines-- it all works together, ie I did not try them separately, but I got greatly lowered noise floor with the whole system. Re: directionality, I was able to run the main wire outside the wall to check directionality before final installation through the attic, eg I ran wire from the main to submain and then listened to each direction. Good Luck. Craig.

Korn... You can do what you're suggesting, but would only have dedicated power to one hubbell duplex outlet, and your ground would still be the same as for the rest of your house. If you have more than one empty breaker slot, run a line from each one for true dedication, but you still need a separate ground. Sol322 and Whknopp above are right re: grounding and more than one dedicated duplex outlet. Get an electrician, tell him what you want to accomplish and let them do their job-- that's actually what I did. I ended up with a submain panel, ran four dedicated lines off it and attached a dedicated ground to it as described above. You may be able to run several ded. lines from your main breaker box, but I don't know how you'd handle ded. grounding, ie that's where the electrician comes in. Again, good luck. Craig.

Korn... I just re-read Albert Porters comments on grounding, and he suggests not to run the ground off the sub-main (the way I did), but ground each hubbell outlet separately. My system now sounds great but Alberts suggestion makes sense but is more trouble to implement. At some point I may have an electrician run a ground wire to each outlet. Albert Porter knows much more about this than me. Craig

Hi Greysquirrel; "I wish I understood all I know about this"-- an old, but appropriate saying. I just let the electrician ground as they would for a "set" of dedicated outlets for safety purposes. I can tell you two things: (1) my system is sounding excellent, (2) When I plug my amp into the ded. outlet I get fairly loud "ground loop" hum unless I use a two prong adaptor plug (which I do, but wish I didn't have to). I hope Albert P. addresses your question as I'm interested in it too. Cheers. Craig

.....Albert, Thanks for your clarification and comments Re: dedicated AC and grounding. My modest system is a worthwhile improvement over standard house wiring. Cheers, Craig