My power conditioner has a pure sine wave output and I'm loving it.
New Dedicated Line - Almost No improvement
Hello,
Newbie here and electrical idiot. Just moved to a new to us house in Tampa. Before we moved in I had an electrician put in a dedicated line (has it's own breaker switch) which is 10 gauge and two Furutech GTX-D outlets - Rhodium.
When I hooked up the EMI meter in my old house, which didn't have a dedicated line, the reading was usually around 26 or so IIRC. At the new house the outlets are 89 usually and the dedicated line is usually around 82 - so not much help for the cost of the "project" and pretty noisy.
Also, when the ac /hvac is running the meter reads about 100 points higher (!) for both the regular outlets and the dedicated Furutechs. Not good.
Thoughts? Does the dedicated line need it's own breaker box?
I'm also considering a line conditioner but wanted to see what could be done here. Thanks.
120 responses Add your response
In my case (2022) it was $1500 for the 4 lines and about the same to upgrade/rebuild the box. I also had him inspect my ground rod. The connection to the box was badly decayed (he showed me that) so the ground was not even connected. This apparently made my whole house surge protector worthless. I had him drive a new ground rod and redo the connection for $750. Around $4K all in…It took the electrician and his assistant two full days to complete the job. He openly said I was insane. I showed him the prices of aftermarket power cables…he said he was starting a new business LOL. We enjoyed a bottle of bourbon and a listening session the last evening. He had no idea what a quality home audio system could do. |
Installing dedicated lines should not be astronomically expensive. Twenty years ago… I think one cost me $300… last year $1,500 (it was a hard location to get to). The $1,500 was well worth it. It doesn’t take any sophisticated electrician… in fact, most of them think you are crazy. You just tell them what you want. For me, five years would be well worth the sound quality improvement I received.
An audio friend of mine really got into it with high end audio wiring and lots of extras. I think he thought it worth while. But you get a lot for just the basics. 10 gauge Romex. |
My story: I’m not too savy when it comes to electrical knowledge. In my case, I hired a highly regarded electrician who installed multiple 20 amp dedicated lines to my music room. He did an extensive rebuild/update of my box so everything is up to code. Everything has worked flawlessly since the work was complete. He installed the lines on a separate leg in my original breaker box. I did it mostly for my power amp which the manufacturer recommends be run on a dedicated 20 amp line. It made a dramatic difference in the performance of my system. Due to my lack of knowledge, I hired an electrician with a stellar reputation in hopes I wouldn’t be taken advantage of…it wasn’t cheap (at all) but system performance really improved. i plan to retire and sell my house in the next 5 years. I wonder if I’d have been better off buying a power regenerator that I could take with me when its time for me to go… |
RE: outlet burn-in. Interesting and I had no idea. As a newbie I think burn in is the most annoying thing about this hobby (wife issues aside). I'll just leave them in because ......although I have about 180 hours on my Sapphire M3s and about 90 hours on the tweeters (had to replace those after too much volume) I'm reading again and again on Audio Circle that they really need 500 hours so I've got a ways to go before those are burned in anyway. That said, if I wanted to speed up the process I could remove one at a time and run my PC through it that I'm on all day at work. RE: Spouse and dedicated room. We have a 4 BR home, mbr, office, wife's office and yoga room and lastly a spare BR. So they are all taken. My plan is that she usually stops watching tv around 9:30 PM and then spends 2 hours doing chick stuff. If I'm not buried at work I will be able to listen from 9:30-11:30 once (!!!) I sound proof the MBR door some wich of course leads out to the LR/stereo room. I figure once I sound proof the door (as much as possible) i can at least listen at 70 db which is fine. Then when she leaves for doctor or hair or yoga the volume will immediately go up to 85-90 db which is where i usually like it. RE: the topic of this thread :) , so many opinions (which of course is fine and the reason I created it) that I'll have to spend some more time sorting through them. I do want to look at a few things mentioned and will be discussing with my electrician and will also read ditusa'a link. I been slammed at work today (with a ways to go) so I haven't had a chance to look in the breaker box again but will do so. RE: impact of SQ - I was just reading my EMI reading for the dedicated outlet vs. the regular outlets and not seeing much of a change. May or may not affect SQ. In an earlier post someone made a good point about this when listening to quieter passages - which I will do once I mount my cart and will put on the Wall or DSOTM or Abaraxis (sp) - there is a long list to choose from. Thanks again all. I appreciate your time and expertise. As mentioned I will go through all of these a few times – especially this weekend when I have more time for it to sink in and look at the panel/breaker box. Will also discuss w/ my electrician.
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On come on @westcoastaudiophile , you don’t need and unlimited budget. The average audiophile product includes more than enough budget to implement an adequate power supply. The issues are often not the power supply at all or just require good design practices, not even a lot of cost. How are you finding those Ampere Time batteries @ricevs ?? Saw them on Amazon. They seemed at the time a bit lower cost than others but not much difference between the brands. I have built up my own 24V batteries for my big boat using 200aH LiFeP04 3.2V cells, and an off the shelf BMS. Too many BMS failures. I wanted something that in a pinch I could bypass in and keep operating. Been looking for some 100Ah or 200Ah for the fishing boat. |
Did you really think a dedicated line would make an improvement ? Properly designed electronics INTERNALLY has all the necessary filters & mechanisms necessary to generate a good enough & acceptable DC. Nothing external is needed. The only requirement from the mains is that it is reasonably sinusoidal so the transformers work properly, and the voltage stays within a reasonable range. Unless you are driving synchronous motors, even the frequency deviation does not matter so much, as long as the frequency does not drop below a number which causes the transformers to heat up. Besides, not even the WORST mains supply in any country does not have fluctuating frequency to such a degree.
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If you need to add an additional breaker box make sure your dedicated lines (hopefully you will be adding one for your amp) are wired into the same box… otherwise this may cause a ground loop. I’ll leave the details of wiring to others. Only, they make a difference… both.
On the spousal acceptance factor. This is definitely something to consider. Personally I would rather put my system in a small room that I control versus a big communal room. Treatments and careful choices can make a system sound amazing in a large closet… but a really expensive system can end up sounding not so good when placement is compromised and treatments (especially something like lots of windows) cannot be installed.
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+1 @mijostyn with unlimited product price target I can design power module for pre/amp/etc to take care of all possible AC power supply issues affecting SQ |
In some cases things like a dedicated line ends up being more of an Insurance policy for best performance than otherwise and one might never accrue any concrete benefit. That appeals to many Audiophile types that are always on the lookout for whatever they think they might be missing. The benefits of a dedicated line is more and cleaner power and current. How much that actually matters will vary case by case. Depending mainly on relative noise levels otherwise and does that even matter with the specific gear in play and how much current an amp must draw to function optimally. That’s about it.
Insurance policies may be beneficial for peace of mind alone if nothing else. YMMV. Other than additional cost, a dedicated line done well should never hurt. |
Laynes- I fail to understand what in your post is the actual SQ problem? Your PL has noise suppression circuitry. As mentioned, a good piece of equipment with adequate power supply is really all that's needed. You have the dedicated line, which is a good move. If you're bent on having more audiophool stuff, there's AC regen or Audioquest Niagqra PLC's. Both get favorable reviews. PL HP user/PS Audio PP. The PL is good enough to not need any of that stuff, but alas, this is the hobby. |
Ignorance is bliss... It’s Not about burning-in just any outlet. Two threads of many from the Agon archives... Furutech GTX NCF receptacle break in, how long
Furutech GTX-D Rhodium NCF Outlet
I can provide a bunch move Links on the subject from users that have experience with the Rhodium plated copper contacts on the Furutech GTX NFC outlet.
My bet is the OP’s problem is with the outlets.... 35 hours of burn-in is nothing. Some of the loads that are plugged into one of the outlets may be less than a half of an amp... . |
@carsbad. Pure sine wave inverters are not very expensive at all really. I can buy a 1000W unit out of Asia that will produce a fairly accurate sine wave for < $100. They are a dime a dozen on Amazon, Alibaba, etc. At light loads they produce good sine waves. At heavy loads there is some distortion. I even quickly found a DIY link for a 1KW pure sine wave based on old technology. The person built it for <$50 of parts. Probably not much of a market for those big old transformers so they are cheap. Rhodium is an adequate conductor of electricity for a coating that is 10-20um. You would need very good equipment to measure the resistance of a coating that thin. It is poor because it is very hard. You can’t install 240 outlets willy nilly. The NEC is written to prevent that. They can only be legally installed to support a device that requires that level of power (not voltage). Those appliances you have have 240V outlets because they require the power that 240V can deliver. It is NEC 210.6 (in complete) that specifies this. |
@theaudioamp Just pulling "isn't that against the code" out of thin air isn't helpful for anybody. No, it is not against the code. There are a lot of 240 appliances that need outlets. My home had 3 different 240 outlets for different appliances. There are codes that govern the installation. But you did hit on one of the big problems with battery systems--the cheap inverters they use. The inverters for most commercial battery systems produce little more than a square wave. They would be a huge step backwards. One reason power regenerators are so expensive, the main reason, is that an inverter that makes a perfect sine wave is very expensive. In fact, I don't know where to buy one except in an audio market power regenerator. And I see mention of rhodium like it is the latest supermetal. Shows how eager people are to jump on a buzzword. Rhodium is a poor conductor of electricity and has no place in audiophile electronics.
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As for running components with battery supplies. I had NEW (Nirvana Electronic Works) DCA66 class a ss amp way back in 90's, early 2000's, ran off four wheelchair batteries, also have Merlin VSM-MM which has BAM that runs off 4 9V batteries.
Point is technology and implementation has been around for some time. Is it game changer? Based on my experience, no, and wouldn't you think audio manufacturers would have caught onto this if it was. Perhaps more battery storage devices with audiophile quality inverters will come to market in coming years, we'll see. |
I have battery storage device I tried on various components, prefer sound from dedicated lines and transformer based power conditioner. The cheap inverters in these devices is the problem, create their own noise/distortions. I assume those built specifically for audio, like the Stromtank have paid much attention to inverter produced noise. |
@clearthinker those pre and phono amps used batteries build into the units or connected to a DC power inlet. That is different from using a cheap AC inverter running from batteries. I could word that differently. A cheap, high powered switch mode power supply. The conversation has degraded to burning in AC power outlets. I think we have lost the plot on the conversation already. The op has not even verified there is a problem yet, but everyone is rushing to solve it without even knowing if there is a problem, or what it is. This is what the inside of one of those low cost inverters looks like: http://www.kerrywong.com/2017/10/01/teardown-and-testing-of-an-800w-puresine-inverter/ It is a high frequency switch mode power supply that generates the high voltage (~170V) and then a PWM stage, and then a filter. I don't see a lot of capacitors or filtering on the DC side, so there could be RF coming out. I don't see any FCC on most of these. YMMV Old school ones with the big huge transformers are probably not as noisy.
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If I were you I would get the outlets burned in first before spinning your wheels looking for possible AC mains power problems. If you only use your audio equipment AC loads to burn in the outlets it could take a year, or more to burn them in... You need to connect a load(s) to the two outlets 24/7 for at least a week or two. You need a load that draws some current. At least 3 or 4 amps if possible. The greater the connected current load the better. . |
@carlsbad Don't be so negative. With most amps engineered to run on AC, one issue is the need to convert from DC. But apart from this, I doubt there would be difficult problems once suitable batteries are sourced. Far less difficult than getting rid of noise on the mains. And less costly probably. But no I haven't implemented. I've thought about it and am doing so more currently (sorry!). Dedicated battery power supplies for pre-amps and phono amps have been around for years. Running only them certainly improves SQ by eliminating noise on the mains at a stroke. Certainly turntables can and some do run on battery supplies although, unlike some, I very much doubt mains noise finds its way to the stylus. Having wrought some big improvement already at cheap cost, that leaves us with power amps. I have read of powering single-ended flea-power valve amps on batteries, reporting positive results. But up to now running my big Class A Krells has put me off researching battery power because suitable batteries have not been in the mainstream. But now I am guessing they are readily available given booming power tool and car applications No-one could deny a car battery could easily run a big amplifier. With my Krells it is noticeable the big draw is on switch on when the big capacitors are filled within a few seconds. That dims the room lighting momentarily. But once full, the topping up process draws a lot less amps. @carlsbad you have strengthened my resolve to start serious work. Eliminating mains noise is certainly a very attractive proposition. |
Isn't it against code to put 240V outlets in most rooms in the home? If so a good electrician won't do that for you.
I have my doubts a cheap sine wave inverter will be noise free. That's a giant switch mode power supply. Audiophiles are obsessed with perfect AC sine waves. It makes no sense. My system sounds exactly the same at any time of the day when I am on holidays. When I am not it swings with my mood. |
@clearthinker You must be big on gedanken experiments--consistent with your name. I'm pretty sure you haven't implemented what you suggest. If you have, I'd love to hear how you solved the many problems you would have to overcome. --Jerry
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I see people recommending adding 2 dedicated lines, one for amp and one for evrything else. If you do that, there is one more thing you can do that gives you opportunity. Your home has 2 legs of 120V power, generally one red and one black. (Sometimes electricians aren't careful and they can get mixed up, since they are identical wrt 120V power). But if you run one leg off of red and one off black, then you have 240V between them for running a european amp. the great thing about that is that at 240V, the current is half that it would be at 120V for the same power. Thus your wire is effectively larger. What I did was just run 240V power to my audio wall. I pulled 120V off the red leg for one set of 3 hospital grade outlets and 120V off the black leg for the other set of outlets. I took the red and black to make a 240V outlet for my european amp (an Ayon). Those of you who understand electrical (not many on this forum) may be asking yourself what about the neutral? Indeed the neutral wire is shared between both legs but I don't find that to be a problem. If the shared neutral concerns you then run 10-4 plus g instead of 10-3 and you can have seperate neutrals. Jerry |
Juice is juice. As long as you get the noise off the line. Seems to me that with rechargeable batteries abundant now from puny right up to car size, the way to go is to use battery power. Choose battery(ies) suitably rated to power your components, charge them in system downtime and disconnect charging while listening. A car-size battery easily has the capacity and punch to run my Krell KRs200s. Eureka. All noise gone, no need for dedicated power lines, fancy power conditioners $15,000 power cords. Why not? |
A completely different way......and a much better way.....sonically....is to get off the frickin grid........Check this out: http://tweakaudio.com/EVS-2/Inverter_Power.html I will have more info in a day or so.....but this is mindblowing........The same great sound day and night......way better sound than you ever imagined......and you can buy a 2200 watt inverter for a little over $300.....then some batteries and charger and you will be in heaven.....of course, there is more......as described. |
Just to review; you have one dedicated 20A line to the service panel. The audio system used the last available breaker (if it's one line, the electrician would have used a standard breaker). Look at the panel, are there any breakers for high-current appliances close to the audio breaker? And are there any on the same Leg (phase) as your audio? Phase will usually be indicated as A or B. Breakers 1,3,5 would be phase A. Breakers 2,4,6 are phase B (in most situations). Heavy-duty appliances such as A/C, fridge, washer will introduce noise back onto the mains.
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How many hours do you have on the outlets???
One of many from the Agon archives... Furutech GTX NCF receptacle break in, how long
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Wow, great replies – and even more varying opinions than I thought there would be. My hobby (although it is fading a bit I must admit) is racing my car and when I first started I had lots of questions and would get a similar amount of different replies. I’ll do now what I did then – read them all and consider them all, do more research and do what I think will apply the most to my situation and be the most beneficial with the budget at hand (that is unclear after spending a whole lot over the past 6 weeks on the new house) and limited time I have to listen - that is for another thread but hifi room is the living room and is open to the rest of the house and wife really doesn’t like loud anything or more importantly what she perceives to be loud. I’m looking forward to her finding her new hair salon, yoga studio etc. which is the only time I can go much above 70 db (if that) for any length of time. In the old house I had the basement and even though it wasn’t sound proofed well I could listen to music hours on end w/o issue. I told her I need to start home shopping for a second home nearby so I can listen to my stereo. Anyway….
Good point on the full space vs. tandem breaker (and I have no idea what those are but will google). The stereo took the last available breaker in the box so probably a tandem or split. This is a good time to learn more about this and will go down this road to see what the deal is. Thanks bikeboy.
Tennisdoc – Even though I had clean power in my old house it was inconsistent and we had brownouts often. I kept all of my electronics on these: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FBK3QK/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1 , which, on a youtube vid somewhere saw it had a clean sinewave, esp compared to other UPS’s. The (apparently worthless) EMI meter was only 2 points worse but did take some of the sparkle out of listening so I started unplugging all my gear (not much really) when I stopped a listening session and plug in when started back up the next day or so. Maybe there is a lesson there. Someone mentioned whole house battery back up in this thread (vs a generator which I had at the last house which I’m pretty sure was dirty power but also there was a 20 second delay) so I’ll also look at that but that power could be not-so-great also. hmmm.
Theaudioamp – good questions. I have done very little listening so far – mostly because of the wife-factor but also time – I haven’t had time to set up my cart yet so only have CDs. I have a Ruby K1 which I read is a good cd player but my vinyl blows away 90% of my CDs. I did just listen to Murder by Numbers (just found out this song was never released on vinyl) fairly loud so I could pay attention. I should have picked a different song or CD rather because there aren’t any extended quiet sections (silent passages). I’ll have to report back after I mount and align my cart and then will put on the Wall which has lots of quiet time. Right now I’m prepping the room as much as possible…doing what I can.
I didn’t search out the Rhodium – I just searched for outlets with good reviews. Maybe not so great but IIRC at $250 ea. I doubt I will be replacing them.
GHD – I’ll post some pics tomorrow in userID. Still have to unpack all of my records and cds (except a few), curtains just came today (not hung – 3 glass sliding doors on the front wall) and although I have a rug pad, I’m still waiting on the rug. After I get power straight (and maybe there isn’t much to do) I will start work on room treatment but also getting resistance from wife there also. Sigh. There is an echo, echo, echo here w/ an open floor plan and tile floors – and sliding glass doors.
I have read that more than a few people were able to plug their amps into their Puritan 156 so again with the 45 day trial period I think I may give it a shot.
I’ll do more research on what I have now in the breaker box/line and then will think about another line. As mentioned above the hifi outlets (2) were the last breaker anyway. However, the pool is getting a heater in a few months so that will have to go somewhere.
Sorry if I didn’t address everyone’s posts. I’ve read them all and will again – and again. |
Get a new electrician. As stated in this thread, there's more to it than the power grid. I guess he thinks it's ok to daisy-chain your audio system on the A/C and refrigerator line. |
We had our home built in Tampa and I could see the inexpensive electrical wire used. Asked the builder about a dedicated line and had never done one and refered me to an electrician. He asked if I was going to keep a large server needing dedicated power. When I mentioned audio, he laughed and said to keep my money. If you aren’t worried about voltage drop when the ac or refrigerator cycles, your at the mercy of the power grid. |
@laynes , I did not see anywhere where you indicated you have a specific noise issue that you hear? I disagree with Steakster in terms of what electrical noise will sound like in an all analog system. Noise does not enter an all analog system and cause the issues that were described. If you are hearing nothing in silent passages with an all analog system, then you do not have a power issue. Power noise does not create distortion in an all analog system. It creates noise that is not correlated to the signal. erik makes a good point. A dedicated line does not prevent noise that appears on your electrical box from getting to your equipment. All those items on their own dedicated lines, which is most of the high power are not helped by a dedicated line. They have benefit when to avoid items like dimmers. I see many people suggesting multiple dedicated lines. This is more often than not a bad idea. The most important connection for a single piece of equipment is normally line and neutral. The most important connection when several pieces of equipment are hooked together is the ground connection. If you run multiple dedicated lines with separate grounds you have just made grounds loops worse. You are running a tube integrated, so most of your connections are a single box. It is a good brand, likely with a well designed power supply. If you can't can't hear noise that appears to be power related when silent, then it is unlikely you have a power issue. If the AC is on, the sound noise of the AC is probably much worse than electrical noise. I do not know what the obsession is with Rhodium in connectors. Audiophiles have some crazy ideas about how things work. If it was better, the military\aerospace would use it in all their connectors. I started out working on military\aerospace electronics. Rhodium is rarely used as a surface material. There are two properties you typically want in a connector interface material. Corrosion/oxidation properties are good, and it is malleable so that is maximizes the contact surface lowering resistance. Two other properties to consider are self lubrication (related to malleability) and wear resistance and impact resistance. You will notice I did not says electrical resistance. The coatings are so thin, 10-200um, that conductivity does not matter much. For any low power connection, gold is a great choice. High corrosion resistance, malleable, some self lubrication. For most power connections, silver is a good choice. Malleable, self lubricating, good corrosion resistance. Only concern is it oxidizes but that oxide is very thin and conductive. Connector wiping action removes typically. Palladium is the next used. It is corrosion resistant, but hard. The hardness in this case is a plus as it can be used when connector ends may be easily damaged. Alloys are also good in arcing conditions (anywhere you plug in live). Rhodium was used in one and only one application. Very rough service, i.e. field items where the contacts could be easily scratched/damaged. If I remember it was always plated on nickel, not for metal diffusion, but because it is brittle and could literally crack off. There is nothing about a connection anywhere in audio where Rhodium makes sense. I hope you fix your noise issue if you have it. Erik seems to be on a good low cost path.
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I agree with @ghdprentice including the adding of another line (same length cable as the others). Regarding power conditioners, I have (2) 20A dedicated lines and use power conditioning to lower the noise-floor. I live in an old neighborhood in Philly. EquiCore + DeepCore have been very effective. A very important point about power conditioners is not to use them for your amp, unless specifically designed for high-current components. The sonics of an amp can be affected. Only my preamp and sources are plugged into mine. |
You did not listen to your system before and after the install. Based on my experience and that of many other people dedicated lines always improve the sound. I think you need to believe it very likely your system sounds better than it would have without it. Moving into a new space means everything has changed. Room acoustics power… etc. I wouldn’t pay attention to the meter.
Second, I would while you move is new, have another line put in. Typically one for the amp and one for the rest of the equipment. All direct lines tend to make a big difference. Next, power conditioner… yes. Very occasionally they don’t do anything… but that is very seldom. After I had my second direct line installed I swapped my 20 year old power conditioner for a high quality power distribution strip (Cardas). That lasted 30 seconds and the power conditioner went back in. Separate breaker box: No.
It would be great to see your system in its new location. There is a place to put it under your UserID. It is not a fashion show… this is a bunch of audio geeks… so we like to see the equipment and venue. |
I'd add better sound staging and imaging to @steakster list of improvements. I too use isolation transformer type of conditioning on everything with exception of amps, amps always go straight into their own dedicated 10AWG line.
@laynes In the end you'll just have to try various PC in order to arrive at your own conclusion. I went through an audition period over a couple years and many PC, a variety of effects, transformer based PC best for me. I'd suggest amps never go on pc based on my auditions. |
Hi OP, many good thoughts here! I formerly used an Inakustik 3500p power conditioner. It did not throttle power and worked great. I then installed dedicated 20 amp circuits (first two and then I liked them so much I installed another. I need one duplex for the mono amps, one for the preamp and DAC, then I needed one more for the new streamer, and had other junk so oh well now I have three lines and six outlets. I removed the power conditioner and found it sounded the same, so it is on the sidelines now. I guess I am luckier about the noise as my background is dead quiet. But I do wonder about the Rhodium Furutechs. My friend got them and did not like them at all. Sounded harsh and grainy. I agree they many need burn in. But how about an easy experiment? Change one of them to a quality outlet but not Rhodium. Something like a PS audio outlet (I have them everywhere) or Hubble if you can find one. They are about 5 for $200 so much less expensive, and grip like nothing else (the PS Audio ones anyway). These may sound much smoother in your system. I have a spare outlet pm me if you want to try it! |
LOL...ahhhh, Tampa in the summer.
Get an Isolation transformer, an upper end Shunyata conditioner or a PSAudio Regenerator like a PP15 or PP20 (adds to the noisefloor of really good AC...but you don't have really good AC). What is your noise level at the box? What is the noise level after midnight? Depending on your home, your in wall wire either rejects noise, is agnostic or it acts like an antenna. I would also consider asking the best local audio shop for their recommended electrician. Its most likely that an excellent electrician familiar with high end audio needs will be able to improve things considerably. |
@riley804 do what I did and order one from a source that has a liberal return policy. I had one in my system for 30 days, no significant improvement and back it went. I also have dedicated lines feeding my system juice. |
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Unfortunately, the properly engineered Noise Sniffers, like the one from Isotek/Blue Horizon cost 1K. Still, read this: https://6moons.com/audioreviews/bluehorizon/1.html |
@carlsbad You nailed it.
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