Dedicated Lines & Power Conditioners

Iv'e noted sizzle or "micro-arcing" from Zinsco brand circut breakers (common in older houses) you can actually hear coming from the breaker with heavy load applied. When different re-conditioned (no longer available new) or used circut breakers exchanged in audio circut, difference is quite audible. With a dedicated circut I am beginning to think the main quality difference is in the straight run of wire instead going through a series of brass screws on receptacles, Will start a new thread soon on my home setup.

I hope you understand that arcing is the breakdown of the dielectric which in this case is air. If you experience any kind of arcing in your circuit breakers or receptacles you need to fix the problem at once. This is not normal. If you have a tight mechanical connection, arcing should NEVER occur.
Anything with a make break connection like switches, circuit breakers and solenoids will have a momentary arc when the electrical connection is first made or broken, but they should never arc once the connection is fully made or fully broken.

09-17-07: Cheapmike
Iv'e noted sizzle or "micro-arcing" from Zinsco brand circuit breakers (common in older houses) you can actually hear coming from the breaker with heavy load applied.

Zinsco, was junk from the get go. They went out of business years ago.

Problem is poor contact pressure between the breaker female slide on connector, of the breaker, and the male breaker aluminum buss tie of the electrical panel buss.
The load presented to the poor connection does not have to be that much to cause micro arcing.
Under High load conditions I have seen where the aluminum breaker buss tie of the panel began to burn it's self free from the female breaker connection.

Any micro arcing can cause EMI noise on the line. Enough arcing will also create RFI.

With a dedicated circuit I am beginning to think the main quality difference is in the straight run of wire instead going through a series of brass screws on receptacles,

Daisy chaining the hot and neutral conductor of convenience branch circuits through the receptacles using the stab-lok feature on the back of the receptacle is one of the worse causes of not only micro arcing, but just plain arcing. This type of branch circuit wiring can cause lots of ac noise on an audio system that may be plugged into it. Especially if the equipment is plugged in near the tail end of the branch circuit.

Even daisy chaining the hot and neutral using the side terminals of receptacles can in time cause cause ac noise. With age the copper wire will corrode at the termination.

To this day NEC still allows the hot and neutral conductors of a single branch circuit wiring to be daisy chained through an electrical receptacle device.

Sorry to have injected an inaccurate/spurious term ("micro arcing") in the discussion. I couldn't think of a way to describe the phenomenon that has been explained to me. My poorly stated observation is that anywhere there is a connection, distortion can and likely will be introduced on the circuit. (As has been explained to my by more than one systems controls engineer who deal with industrial control systems as found in nuclear power plants and chemical production plants, these distortions are easily seen with the kinds of test used for final tuning of these control systems, and they can play havoc with the system.)

Whether there is arcing or not, Jea48 has identified the potential concern very well.

The point is: avoid the connection and eliminate the introduction of yet another distortion to your system. If you're serious about installing dedicated circuits, install them as home runs with one home run per electrical outlet. If a connection is unavoidable, use a top performing contact enhancer like Walker Audio Extreme SST.
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