My Home Theater setup is attached to an isolated ground (ask your electrician). It helps prevent hum.
Outlets and Wire Gauge? - Please help!
I finally contracted an electrician to run two dedicated lines - a week from today! I have been reading thread after thread and the consensus appears to be going with 10awg wire for the 20amp run. My problem is two-fold:
- I'm stuck selecting an outlet because the electrician says that no 20amp outlet can take 10awg, that "10awg is for 30amp outlets".
- I'm stuck selecting an outlet because of what it might do to my sound.
I simply want to install something good that's going to feed a Puritan Audio PSM156. I am now running ADG Gran Vivace monos. I prefer a rich midrange.
Additionally, I asked for both a 15 and 20 amp run. People suggested I do this so my sources can be run off the 15A with amps / subs off of the 20A, but someone here mentioned ground loops? I am not well-versed in things electrical. Ideally I would like to know if I should stick with the two runs, and what would be a few good choices for each outlet if I do. @jea48 @erik_squires ... I have seen solid advice from you on the topic of outlets, but they lack things specific to awg and outlet type.
Thank you in advance!
PS I estimate the length of the run to be approximately 50', max.
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@erik_squires I too am in MA, western MA. @jimf421 My electrician mentioned my new runs being on isolated grounds. Like Erik, I too am in IT but spent three summers in my youth renovating turn of the century houses where I had to replace all electrical and plumbing. My education was outside of books and for a man, who was a master in my eyes but I will never know if he was licensed or not. He owned all of the houses. I know nothing of the NEC. |
You don't need an isolated ground to prevent hum. What may prevent hum is ensuring all your equipment is wired to a ground that is at the same potential. Multiple separate outlets where the ground reference is 30 feet back at the electrical box is a way to get hum. Better way to eliminate hum is to use balanced connections. If you have balanced connections and you still have hum, you have a problem you missed. Bad equipment, a cable TV connection you forgot about, another load on the line making a lot of noise on the AC. Ground loop hum is because ground currents are flowing in signal wires that should not be. For that to happen, there must be a difference in ground potential of the two pieces of equipment. An isolated ground does not help that as it must be connected back to the panel with your other ground. The new ground didn't fix the problem. Isolating the AC runs may have.
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Just want to get on my soap box here a little: The best place for MOV surge protection is in your panel. Now required by the NEC, however they still have high let-through voltages. The NEC, and all major panel makers recommend you supplement them with point of use surge protectors. Based on the Wirecutter testing, which AFAIK is the only reviews which include actual surge testing done in the past 10 years, the best are Furman and Trip Lite.
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