Absolute top tier DAC for standard res Redbook CD

Matt (or anyone else) will you be at Audio Connection on Sat the 22nd for Richard Vandersteens visit? I'm going to head down, weather permitting. I should be there from start to finish as I have some auditioning to do in addition to the event. I'm in FULL code as to how my electrical system is set up. None of my 6 pack of wall outlets connect in anyway, so I don't get cross talk. I'm not sure what he did, but there is a separate breaker for each one in the box. The electrician is also an audiophile and I don't think he used Romex either. It may be all copper. I honestly don't remember it all, but he had fun installing it all. Said it wasn't complicated or anything. I know I have a huge main box and an aux box too for extra circuits for my wood working shop in the basement.

Matt - make sure that all 4 AC runs are from the same phase in the panel. For your digital, you may want to use one circuit for all of it.

Isolated grounds do work, but as Al says they do not meet code. I have a friend that did this. He put a 6 foot ground rod into the earth and ran wires to all of his audio outlets rather than using the ground wires from the panel.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

I ran all 10 gauge solid copper wire. Heavy as hell. My system is fully to code, but I do it myself. It takes me longer then a professional would, but I save a fortune on billable electrician hours and I know its done to my particular standards.

Its not that hard to do a simple system like this. Even the lights aren't hard. I am happy to walk anyone through the process. I have a friend who is a licensed electrician and I am having him inspect everything prior to getting final inspections from the town. Its fun and rewarding to know I did my own wiring for my listening room.

I just need to take mpeg video of the whole room, floor to ceiling so that I can refer to it in the coming years if a change needs to be made. Its always good to have a full video of the floor, walls and ceiling to know where every stud, cable and duct in your walls is exactly located. I did this when I built my whole house and I cant tell you how may times I refer back to the videos since we moved in 7 years ago...

ctsooner - I will call and ask the specific of the meeting at Audio Connection. I would love to go if I can get free...

Steve - Thanks for the suggestions. I definitely will.
I have 2 dedicated 20 amp circuits running to the rack, one for digital, 1 for analog. Each runs to it's own single outlet.

I'm going to pass on the isolated ground rod thing. As I said, I found some simple to implement (and inexpensive) solutions. I'll stick to my grounding bar in my sub-panel...

Ctsooner, based on your latest post it sounds probable that the electrician simply installed what are commonly referred to as dedicated lines for each of the outlets, which is fine.

I had been interpreting your earlier statement, and Agear's as well, to amount to what is depicted in the figure at the top of page 8 of the reference I provided. That is done by some audiophiles, but would entail all of the risks I described.

Matt, that all sounds fine also. And +1 to Steve's suggestions.

Regarding your questions, my instinct would be to connect the monitor to the same outlet as the computer, and to NOT connect it to the outlet powering the turntable motor. I'm envisioning the possibility that if they were on the same outlet some amount of RFI generated by the monitor might find its way to the motor, and radiate from there to the phono signal wiring.

My instinct/guess is the same as yours, though, regarding there probably being no need to have the trickle charger and the phono stage on the same circuit.

Hummmmmm......

Clever double entendre :-)

Regards,
-- Al