Dedicated lines — how many? Other advice?

The circuit breaker test I described can be done by anyone, any time. I have described this test at least a half a dozen times now. Once you have your system warmed up and running it takes at most a few minutes. As far as I know no one has ever bothered to try it. 

This is the one area I have yet to hear anyone talk about. It is great what Harley and Atkinson did. For some reason people get all caught up in BSD. I say good for them. But Atkinson compared normal wire to dedicated lines with a conditioner. Harley likewise wired his room, one and done.  

I thought all good audiophiles know you must make only one change at a time to be able to comment on what did what? That is still a thing, right?  

So there really is no conflict at all between what I am saying and what these guys did. All that is missing, neither one of them can say what contributed to what.  

Because I did all my stuff 30 years ago back before the internet I had no choice but to try and see. So my room was wired first the normal way, because the electrician and everyone else had me convinced it couldn't possibly be worth a dedicated line. Then I changed one thing, to a dedicated line. That right there was huge. I have actually done just this one thing, and heard the difference. Then I changed that dedicated line to larger gauge. So I know what that does. Then changed it from 120V to 240V with a step down. Then I added a dedicated earth ground. So I know what that did. Then ripped all the wire out and had it cryo'd. Same wire, nothing else changed. So I know what that does. That was all years ago. Now the last few years I've done a whole slew more things, to the point virtually every inch of wire from where the service comes in the breaker panel to where it solders onto the drivers is treated one way or another.  

The thing about ground loops and hum, it is not a case of if you do it wrong you will get hum. Lots of people get away with doing it wrong, for a couple of reasons. One, it takes a pretty decent voltage differential to result in audible ground loop hum. How much? Depends! And two, a lot of AC "noise" is inaudible as noise. You do not hear it as noise, per se.   

That is the whole point of the test. To educate yourself and your ears to actually maybe understand what everyone else is merely talking about. The fact of the matter is until you have actually done this stuff you just don't know. Atkinson and Harley know they have it better now. They just don't know for sure why, because of the way they did it. 

Having done this stuff has taught me every inch of wire is an antenna funneling noise into the system. I would not want more wires running to my system simply because that is more antenna, more noise. Also I know the value of treating the wires. The more wires the more wire treatment. Double the treatment does not yield double the improvement. It just costs double. 

You see the difference? You see why it is possible to learn so much from seemingly simple tests like flipping breakers? It is nice to cut and paste stuff others have done. Do you see the difference between cut and past and knowing from experience?

Bear in mind a lot of things people say that seem to make sense don’t really pan out when tested. The idea of separating things on different circuits for example. I have done all kinds of stuff that proves this does not work the way everyone thinks. There is even a very simple method anyone can use to demonstrate and prove this for themselves.

Simply listen to some music, flip off all the non-system circuit breakers, and listen again. The improvement you just heard was nothing to do with the system circuit. You didn’t touch that. It is all the other "separate" "isolated" circuits that made the difference. If things on other circuits are isolated or separated then disconnecting them would make no difference. But it does. Therefore they cannot be isolated.

Next do the same thing only this time flip off only circuits with nothing running on them. Another improvement, this time not as big but it is there. I have done this several times for different people, they always hear it. I have done this before and after adding a power conditioner, step down transformer, system dedicated earth ground, etc. All things that are supposed to eliminate and prevent things like this from ever happening. They do not. They do not make even the slightest difference. The breaker flipping trick makes a big improvement, no matter what.    

So what is going on? I could tell you but it is better if you actually do this and think about it, because that is the key, to think and not just repeat stuff everyone else is saying.

How many lines again, Michael? https://youtu.be/H07NpWk_Xf8?t=947

Surge suppressors? Almost everything electrical it is low voltage that causes problems not high. All my sensitive electronics from computers to CPAP run right off 240 when I travel just fine. The reason is they all have power supplies. The first thing that happens in a power supply the voltage goes through a transformer that steps it up or down to whatever the device requires. It then goes through diode rectifiers that convert AC to DC, which is stored in power supply caps. Voltage surges do nothing but help the caps charge faster.

That's if the voltage surge is from say 120V to 240V, which is a pretty big surge, but nothing can't be handled fine anyway. So surge suppressor no good.

What if you are hit by lightning? Then the surge can be 60kV, 100kV, the skies the limit. This kind of voltage takes out your roof or wherever it hits, and arcs right through your circuits in a surge so big and fast only seriously designed protection is gonna do any good- and maybe not even then. Go look at what a direct hit can do.

People buy these because it makes them feel so good to imagine they are maybe gonna be safe from something that in all likelihood never will happen, and are willing to pretend this all comes at no cost in terms of sound quality.

We spend thousands and go to great lengths to run a direct line to eliminate extra connections and the noise they introduce, then turn around and believe none of that matters any more because, "surge suppressor". 

But fear will cause people to do all kinds of things. Remember your Dune: "Fear is the mind-killer."

Use one direct (dedicated) line for the audio. This will be your high end system line. Everything connected to this system must be plugged into this circuit. Nothing else. This is to a) provide the best power and b) avoid ground loop hum and other noise problems.  

Everything else can be on as many circuits wired however you want. I would recommend one circuit for lights, one for all other outlets, and plug all the other stuff (video, etc) into those other outlets. 

Do not use more than one line for the audio. Use one power conditioner and plug everything into that one AC source. Does not matter how you group components. (There is a lot of misinformation around all these topics. Study my system. See who has what experience. Nuff said.) 

Skip the surge suppressor. Waste of money.  Spend it where it will do more good. Get the Decware Zen https://www.decware.com/newsite/ZLC.html

Use 10awg wire, 20A, and do not stress the details. For what you can spend on stuff you will never hear you can buy one fuse that will make a hundred times more difference. I know. I have wired my room several different ways and heard what all these different things actually do. There is more benefit to a good AC outlet for less money and work than what you can do paying an electrician, trying to convince him, etc.   

Try and keep some perspective. The single biggest improvement by far is to run the one line direct. Otherwise, electricians will always wire a circuit to go from outlet to outlet in a daisy chain of connections. Eliminating all these connections is by far the biggest gain. I have wired my room at least three different ways, including ripping it all out and having all the wire cryogenically treated. By far the biggest improvement was that first step of running the line direct. So do what you want but realize there are things that are extremely cost effective, and then there is a lot of other stuff that you could do way better with the same money any of a dozen other ways.