How many dedicated lines are enough?

I have always perfered the transport / Dac and/or CDP on one dedicated line, amp on a second dedicated line and the rest on a third and/or forth dedicated line. I did not like the amp plugged into anything else but the wall outlet.

I found each component I have likes it's own dedicated line. So when I built my room I installed over 20 direct lines. Each of my 4 Krell amps is a little pig and hate to share a line with each other or any other component. Likewise each digital component has its own digital line until recently when I started using PS Audio's P 10. I now plug all my digital into this. In my view you can't have too many.

Like Sgr, I built my room with dedicated lines, each marked as phase one or phase two. Fourteen are 120 volt and two are 240 volt.

Ten of the 14 are phase one and four are phase two. Phase one is the (slightly) higher leg that runs the analog. The slightly lower voltage leg is for digital. (121.5v versus 119.7v)

Like money, you never have enough. However, the best formula I have seen is your age time two. Yes, each year adds the need for more, and that assumes you are getting wealthier and buying more gear.

I have three lines also.

The first for my digital equipment, (CD player, CD recorder and SACD Player).

The second for my preamp and turntable.

The third for my amplifiers.

(That seemed to be the minimum number based upon my research at the time I had them installed.)

My two cents worth anyway.

more is always better =). unfortunately my electrician blew me away with the estimate for what i wanted. retrofitting my 50 year old house's basement with the 8 dedicated lines i had hoped for was a budget buster (new panel box and tearing up almost all the walls). ended up getting 2 installed fairly inexpensively at $800. use one for HT and the other for 2 channel. added a psa quintet to keep things as isolated as possible. i definitely noticed a difference even with two.

would have liked eight but ended up with two. still very happy.

Thanks folks, nice to see the responses and that others have found that the minimum seems to be three lines.

I am glad I made the effort to add the extra line, it's made quite the improvement.

Too bad Levy03 can't find a less costly electrician or another way around the problem.

I know of some people who have added on a pony panel and then run dedicated short lines from it for far less money and less wall damage.

I made do with a single additional line for amp / sub.

The other gear is plugged in thru a power conditioner with several banks of dedicated outlets, including the digital gear thru a 400va iso transformer.

Levy03 give me a call,

I just put in 10 dedicated lines myself. Got the directions off of that internet....Wait what was that noise????..... I smell smoke!!!! Gotta Run! :>)

I agree with the general idea of "The more, the better". It's now common knowledge that you'll be separating digital from the rest but as others here have mentioned, giving amps their own line separate from pre-amp and other components allows high-current demands to have their own "Source-way" without interfering with all else. Also like some others I managed to create a separate sub-panel for audio use only where I have a total of 7 dedicated 20 amp lines for all audio equipment plus an additional 3 dedicated 15 amp lines for lighting, HVAC,ceiling fans, etc...anything not "component active". Plenty of fresh, clean power is always a good thing, of course! Good luck with your system.

As some have said,definately can't have enough.
I started with one 240v dedicated with 4X15a dedicated lines
running thru a sub panel.
Now I have added another 240 dedicated plus a dedicated 20a line for my sub.
Now I think I need another dedicated 20a for the otherside of the room.
Both 240 lines feed my Torus(s)60a+20a.60a in the front sidewall and the 20a in the back wall with the subpanel.
Didn't think I'd need more than 10 outlets on the Torus,
but I did.
If you ever imagine having more gear than you do now,then I'd definately make room for more dedicated lines cause you
never know

Hrrmm, three dedicated lines? I thought I was good to go with two dedicated 20amp lines. One for front end only and the other for just the Amp. I guess I never considered further subdividing the current config. Damn, always one step behind I am.

My only problem with putting in another line is that I think my setup sounds better when plugged into my two pricey power conditioners. This new configuration would force me to purchase a third pricy power conditioner and cord to go with it.

For those who went from 2 lines to 3 or more, would you say there was $4k worth of benefit gained in SQ while doing so?

Well I can say that running a third line for the amp was the way to go in my case, and I don't need another power conditioner to plug the amp in.

And I am a big proponent of power conditioners and also used a couple of Furman balanced power units.Sold the IT20 kept the 15 for my separate HT system.

I was running my amp on a separate dedicated line into a Hydra 2.
Everythingelse was into a Hydra 8 on the second dedicated line.

There was a noticeable improvement in sound when I took the cd player out of the Hydra 8,and switched positions with the power amp now going into the Hydra 8, the cd player into the Hydra 2 and the other line.

I know, sounds like musical chairs, but really that's what it is.

The sound was better this way, and for me, I felt a two watt amp wouldn't suffer by being put on the same line and into the Hydra 8.

Then on a whim on a rainy day, I decided to try isolating the 2 watt amp on its own 20 amp line.

Lots of folks would scoff at that idea, and call it overkill.
I was pretty much in that camp, until I actually tried it.

Yes the sound of the whole system improved again.
The sound now has more focus, less opaque, and more bounce, but it's easier to describe it as just better.
And yet I thought it was better before the last change.

And that proves the point that until you try something, you'll never really know if it will work or not.

No matter how much you think it just won't make difference, until you do the heavey lifting, it's just speculation and not based on anything but beliefs.

A lot of beliefs can be built up or torn down when you stop thinking and start doing.

I just have the one. It's a 40A, 240V that's split up through a subpanel and most often fed through step-down transformers.