Dedicated line

#12 is good for 20 amps, plenty of amps for most audio gear. Standard house wiring is insulated fine for safety but has zero shelding for EMI or RFI, which is why the big buck power cable guys can draw such a following. If you have a very short run from your service entrance point, or very deep pockets, you could run 'audio grade' power cable all the way to gain EMI/RFI shielding. I recently had a dedicated line installed as well as an isolated ground. I was able to install the isolated ground myself by driving an 8' copper ground rod into the ground outside my listening room, changing the recepticals to the isolated ground variety, and running a seperate ground wire from the new receptical to the ground rod. This made an incredible improvement in depth, clarity & background silence, but there was still some A/C 60hz noise, so I had an electrician install a dedicated 20 amp circuit (with regular house wire, but in a metal conduit), leaving the isolated ground in place. Now the ONLY sounds between cuts are the sounds made by the tubes & transformers in my Cary power amps. To hear this, I have to crank the power up past 12 noon & kneel on all 4's in front of my speakers. From the listening position there is dead silence. This is with or with out my Monster HTS2000 in the line, reducing the HTS2000 to surge protection only as there is no noise left to clean up. The isolated grounding cost me about $30 & some sweat. The dedicated circuit cost $300 for the labor & materials. Hope this helps.

Johnmhuntbch, this is excellent advice, thank you! It's very possible that my option could an "audio grade" power cable. Any brand suggestion? This being for a power line about 40ft. perhaps a good value for money model would make sense. I am giving up power conditioners after I have the dedicated line and will have Powersnakes plugged directly to Wattagate outlets on the dedicated line. A fellow in another posting mentioned, "Isolation grounding means that a different wire type is used to carry the back-box ground to another grounding point on the breaker box". But in your case the isolated ground you installed has a separate ground wire from the new receptacle (outlet) to the ground rod and NOT from the dedicated circuit in panel box to the ground rod. Do I understand it right? I am meeting a recommended electrician tomorrow who's suppose to be in tune with wiring of audio equipment. A couple I spoke to (from the Yellow pages listing) advised me that the difference of a dedicated ac line on audio would be indistinguishable to the human ear! Many thanks again for sharing your experiences.

Check out the Audioquest AC-12 for house wiring cable....