Suggestion for new panel/dedicated line

sounds like your good to go brudda.

The EP units are well worth the price given my experience with them since early July. I've had Oyaide R1s (cryo'ed in 3 homes) for several years and was very happy with them but upgraded about 1 1/2 years ago to Afterburner8 outlets from Avatar Acoustics with eye-opening results....see my other posts on the various threads on these outlets and the EP units.

While you are changing your panel go ahead and upgrade to a 150 or 200 amp service. My favorite panel is the Cutler Hammer "CH" style panel.

Well, my requirements are specifying minimum that I need. If it requires 200A service/panel, I am absolutely fine with it OR if it is panel with 40 spaces, I am good.

Another vote here for the big CH 200amp panel with copper busbars!

Hi Martrixdude/Zephyr24069,

May I ask you guys what CH panel ( model) are you guys using ?

Mine is a CH42 series; believe it is a CH42H225L with copper busbar kit added....

Thanks for reply.
I found an electrician to work with, installing CMBE4242B200BTS CH type panel this weekend.

About dedicated line
I am also planning for 4 dedicated circuit

a) Two of them ( very short runs, about 10 feet each) will be on "Cardas 3x10" in wall AC . I plan to put my DAC/pre-amp/amp on these two lines. Outlet are Oyaide R1 ( with face plate)
b) Romex 10/2 ( Southwire, from Lowe) for Third dedicated circuit will be used for Sub-woofer, ( 20 feet from breaker). Fourth will left be for future use. ( Hubbell 5262W )

Question: Do I need to run these wires in conduit ? City doesn't require it but are there any benefits of doing so ?

Any special breakers (AFCI/GFCI) ?
Ground wire AWG ?
Anything else should I know ?

Thanks

I'll attempt to get in touch with my electrician; I moved into this house in June of this past year, the house was built about 7 years ago. My electrician told me there is a "very large" ground rod well under the house and the grounding used a "large guage" lead; that's all I know right now. I'll have to get under the house to know more detail on that aspect. He knows audio and HT installs and said there was no need to modify/improve any aspect of that.

Are you putting the dedicated circuits into the main panel or also running a sub-panel? If the latter, see my virtual system for details on the sub-panel I wound up choosing as the only SquareD and similar sub-panels available locally were not the preferred models from those companies. I happened to find a copper busbar GE sub-panel that was ideal for my application; I was lucky in that the electrician actually volunteered to run 6/4 which looks like a hose-pipe and is very hard to work with to join the sub-panel into the main panel....

I cannot oversell the value of picking up and adding an Environmental Potentials EP2050 WaveForm Correction/Surge Suppression unit and one EP2750 Ground Filter unit per dedicated circuit to the install. They worked wonders for me. The LED UHD4K TV in our living room even improved it's video performance dramatically as a result of the 2050 being installed on the main panel! The 2750 ground filters did wonders even over and above the great noise floor and black backgrounds I was experiencing before the install thanks to my Bybee unit and Granite Audio Ground Zero station....

I looked at the possibility of using various high-end AC wire from Cardas, and several other manufacturers at 30 USD per foot and much higher. To be honest, I don't miss it, or the huge price tag given the length of circuit I had to run. The money was much better spent (IMHO) on the EP add-ons to the overall electrical system.

I'm very familiar with the Oyaide R1s (cryo'ed was my pref) and still have several I used for many years in storage. I had an eye opening experience when I upgraded them to Avatar Audio's AFTERBURNER8 outlets; my whole system jumped in naturalness and organic qualities of musical playback. I really liked the R1s when I used them over multiple years; the AFTERBURNER8s are in a whole different league (again IMHO).

I don't remember what breakers I wound up going with; my electrician picked them up and said they were best bolt-in breaker available that was a manufacturer-specified match for my panels. I can dig up more info if you need it but my advice is lookup your panel on the EATION/CH website and follow their advice as to the highest-end matching breaker you can buy.

Wire in conduit: My opinion once you have the 10/2 wire itself (I used straight ROMEX orange-jacket, I passed on the Southwire but only due to my electrician's advice), running in flex conduit is a mistake I made in the prior house for a 100' run that I'll not make again. It was was several things,...unnecessary in hindsight, much more complicated given how hard it is to pull thick leads through the conduit, and also more complicated to get a good ground established and not have any ground loops/hum in the system as the metal flex conduit, J-boxes (if you use them), etc....create several more levels of complication viz. getting everything to see the same ground reference. I had a hell of a time getting the bugs out of the prior house install initially and my electrician back then was cursing the decision on a routine basis. In retrospect, it was an unnecessary step as long as you buy sound in-wall rated conduit. Others may disagree with this but I've seen both sides of the topic around pulling through conduit and it frankly is not worth all the extra time, aggravation and expense that it took to get right.

One other thing....if you will have 3 dedicated circuits, make sure that the ground ref is very well tested out and the same level. If there are variants, and you have your gear connected to multiple circuits that don't all have the same ground potential, the fact that the system is itself interconnected with interconnects, etc...could produce some level of noise/hum that will be tricky to eliminate.

Any other questions, let me know; happy to help wherever I can. If you write me on Audiogon mail, I can also get an email address from you and would be glad to share some 10 MP digital photos of the main and sub-panel installs that you can zoom in and see more detail.

Best of luck with this key project!!!

Thanks Zephyr24069 for detailed response and advice, I really appreciate it.

Few specifics about my project

This is going to be my main panel ( not sub panel), It is copper bus and I sent email to Eaton to check if there are bolt on breakers available for this panel.

About in wall Cardas, two of my runs are very short ( less than 15 feet together I guess from mains) so I can give it a try on those circuits at not so much expense)
For other two longer runs, I will use orange romex 10/2.

EP 2050/2750 will stretch my budget out of range right now but I will see if I, somehow, can manage it.

Thanks for advice on ground ref also, I will ask my electrician to make sure that they are same potential.

Best of luck....write me on email if you have any other questions,...always happy to talk audio!!!

Phase I of upgrade is complete. My electrical panel is now upgraded to 200A CH type from Zinsco 100A.
My stereo's mid range is opened up quite a bit. Instrument separation is improved.

Phase II would be done tomorrow ( 4 dedicated circuits).
Two of circuits would be done with Cardas AC 10/2 , other two would use Romex 10/2.

Phase III would be installing EP 2500 on thursday.

I will update/report as my perception of it.

Thanks

Congratulations on the phase I upgrade! The CH panels are good quality and glad to see you are already hearing a difference....enjoy the next steps!

Thanks Zephyr24069, Do I actually need four EP 2750 for four dedicated circuits ?

I will be using one circuit for DAC/Preamp ( Duplex outlet), other circuit for amp. It will be one circuit dedicated for subwoofer and one of later expansion ( may be monoblocks).

I want to keep it in budget for now and not lose on performance.

If you have four dedicated circuits literally, you should put one EP-2750 ground filter on each. I don't see a real need for 4 circuits though; you could put everything you have on one proper dedicated 20-amp circuit or also minimally on two dedicated 20-amp circuits splitting your front-end components (DAC/Preamp, Transport/Streamer?) on one circuit and your subwoofer and amp on the other. When spliting a system across multiple circuits, you have to make 100% certain that the grounding is perfect and that both circuits see the same aspect of ground (not an electrician so don't know the right technical words to utilize). As an aside, I had a killer 7.1 HT setup with all separates for a few years, HT Processor, 2-ch pre-amp, universal transport, DAC, clock, separate amps for bi-amped fronts, separate center and separate (4) rear channels, subwoofer, high-end HDTV, game consoles, video parametricEQ processor (Lumagen) and LFE bass parametricEQ processor; I did NOT need 3, 4 or more dedicated circuits; I ran off one 20-amp circuit and later two at most. I don't think you need to overcomplicate by going to 4 dedicated circuits FWIW....

Thanks Zephyr24069 for response.
My electrician was giving me about same quote for two/four circuits. I am currently using three, one for DAC/pre amp , other for AMP and last for subwoofer. Fourth is unused right now ( future proofing :-)

I ordered two EP-2750, one for DAC/preamp and other for Amp circuit.
I am also installing EP 2050.

I think you will be VERY happy with the results!