Power cords to the same outlet

You have to be careful when it comes to breaking your system up onto different outlets. Unless all of the outlets are on the same circuit breaker or fuse, you can easily run into ground loops, higher noise floors, etc... I found this out the hard way when i went to some mono-blocks in my computer room system last year. Due to their location, i had to use two different outlets. While i could never put my finger on it, the system just never sounded right after that. As it turns out, I had a low level buzz coming throughout the whole system that was hardly noticeable due to all of the ambient noise in the room ( air cleaner, ionizer, etc..) Once i got the plug situation straightened out, it sounded far superior and i had to wonder how i had been listening to it like that for so long. Besides having to worry about ground loops, make sure that the outlets are wired in phase with each other. I've had outlets that were wired backwards from one another and that made a big difference, especially on the phono stage. TONS more noise due to the high gain. Sean
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There is a handy little device that Rat Shack sells under part number 22-101 and is called a "circuit tester". It looks like a standard three prong male power plug but has a little chart on top of it and three LED's sticking out of the back end. You simply plug it into the outlet and it will give you a readout via the LED's. Compare the color code of the LED's to the various combinations presented in the chart and that will tell you if your outlets are wired "normally". While it can also tell you whether or not you have a ground, it will not differentiate between a "good" or "poor" ground. Just that it is or isn't connected. Even though both outlets that i had mono-blocks plugged into checked out fine, they were on different breakers and it resulted in a very noticeable 60 Hz hum. In other words, this device is not a "cure all", it's simply a "quick & dirty" check to see if everything is BASICALLY okay. Sean
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