I am not sure what you mean by a "local" electrician, but there isn't a much simpler task than installing a couple of outlets so if the person is in business and has been doing it for a while it is highly unlikely that he got it wrong. Lights dimming when the ac kicks on is pretty common - there is a high start up current drawn by any motor, usually several times the value of the operating current, causing a voltage drop. This has nothing to do with the new outlets. My guess is that your lights dimmed before you had the new outlets installed and you just paid no attention to it. As an aside, your amplifier probably also has a high inrush current at power up (your uncharged power supply caps are initially shorts) - I got curious as to this and called Mcintosh - their engineer (Ron C) wrote back that their 402 has a 50 amp inrush current - I measured over 20 with an analog meter - which was probably just too slow to catch the full peak. The operating current, also measured is 5 amps).
The voltage drop from your ac coming on is not going to hurt anything. If you heard it in the music then you have a problem with your equipment. It won't damage your equipment and it won't degrade any component in your power supplies.
To see if you are properly grounded and check your outlets there are a number of simple cheap ground check plugs on the market - my guess is HD sells them. You can also take a meter and see if you have 120 v between hot and neutral and 120 v between hot and gnd, and pretty close to 0 v between neutral and gnd.
The street side of your water feed to the house is at earth ground. Find an outlet near your water meter and measure the resistance from the water pipe to the ground at that outlet. Look inside the box and it should be obvious where the new outlets lines are connected to the ground bus. As a pretty good approximation - if you have 0 ohms from another outlet to the water pipe and you have the new outlets grounds connected to a bus bar with a lot of other green wires - your ground is fine. Is this a sure guarentee - no - but, given your description, if this is found to be true, I would stop there.
Square D is a standard for boxes.
Your power company will want to know why you believe that you have a problem. They will likely not send anyone out to look at your power feed just to make sure that your power is ok. If you report that your lights dim when your ac comes on they will also not likely send anyone out , as this is common and does not indicate a problem with the power coming from the company. If you express concern that bad power may be affecting your audio system they will want to know what effects you are experiencing and if you cannot define it as anything other than a change in sound quality, they will likely suggest that you hire a private electrician to check out your power.
If you have a power problem of the nature that you are referring to it is not going to show up as a degradation in the quality of your sound. So long as the voltage at your outlet stays at above 100 volts or so the minor fluctuations from your ac kicking on etc are not going to matter - the power supply caps will hold up the rails.
The idea of ac power problems affecting sound quality is largely misfounded, particularly what you are describing. What you do want is protection against induced lighting damage. Another problem, though rare, and much more practical for audio systems, is where the power actually drops out during high usage times - usually in the summer and not limited to your home. If your power drops out completely and comes back on - say a 2 second interval for eg., and you are at that time listening to music at high volumes, you will likely hear that at the speakers. It makes sense to me that if one is going to use a power conditioner one selects a unit that will also provide power for a short time in such instances - usually accomplished by using a set of batteries as an emergency power source from which to create an ac waveform.
The voltage drop from your ac coming on is not going to hurt anything. If you heard it in the music then you have a problem with your equipment. It won't damage your equipment and it won't degrade any component in your power supplies.
To see if you are properly grounded and check your outlets there are a number of simple cheap ground check plugs on the market - my guess is HD sells them. You can also take a meter and see if you have 120 v between hot and neutral and 120 v between hot and gnd, and pretty close to 0 v between neutral and gnd.
The street side of your water feed to the house is at earth ground. Find an outlet near your water meter and measure the resistance from the water pipe to the ground at that outlet. Look inside the box and it should be obvious where the new outlets lines are connected to the ground bus. As a pretty good approximation - if you have 0 ohms from another outlet to the water pipe and you have the new outlets grounds connected to a bus bar with a lot of other green wires - your ground is fine. Is this a sure guarentee - no - but, given your description, if this is found to be true, I would stop there.
Square D is a standard for boxes.
Your power company will want to know why you believe that you have a problem. They will likely not send anyone out to look at your power feed just to make sure that your power is ok. If you report that your lights dim when your ac comes on they will also not likely send anyone out , as this is common and does not indicate a problem with the power coming from the company. If you express concern that bad power may be affecting your audio system they will want to know what effects you are experiencing and if you cannot define it as anything other than a change in sound quality, they will likely suggest that you hire a private electrician to check out your power.
If you have a power problem of the nature that you are referring to it is not going to show up as a degradation in the quality of your sound. So long as the voltage at your outlet stays at above 100 volts or so the minor fluctuations from your ac kicking on etc are not going to matter - the power supply caps will hold up the rails.
The idea of ac power problems affecting sound quality is largely misfounded, particularly what you are describing. What you do want is protection against induced lighting damage. Another problem, though rare, and much more practical for audio systems, is where the power actually drops out during high usage times - usually in the summer and not limited to your home. If your power drops out completely and comes back on - say a 2 second interval for eg., and you are at that time listening to music at high volumes, you will likely hear that at the speakers. It makes sense to me that if one is going to use a power conditioner one selects a unit that will also provide power for a short time in such instances - usually accomplished by using a set of batteries as an emergency power source from which to create an ac waveform.