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Another dedicated circuit question

(I just wrote a novel, and I tried to paste a couple of links, and the whole thing disappeared, so as I type slowly and poorly, I am going with the condensed version this time.)

About 25 years ago I put in three dedicated circuits for my gear.  (That was before I had a PC & internet, so I am sure that I must have gotten the idea from Stereophile, and as with all things, I thought bigger was better and more was best.)  Recently I have been reading a number of dedicated circuit threads and discovered that I had made numerous errors.  Therefore I have been up in my attic and into my panel for the last week or so removing, replacing, and rerouting and I was about done

and then

I found out that three dedicated lines was another mistake I made.  No biggy:  I bought a lot of Romex and other stuff I didn't need and spent some extra time I didn't need to spend, but I can rectify the three-circuit-RFI that I introduced by turning 'off' two of my three system circuit breakers.  Right?

But my question is:  since I need four outlets (digital source, pre, amp, powered sub) is the BEST solution to put another outlet in series with my one dedicated outlet?

Are there any power-strip solutions that are of an acceptable grade?  After the last dedicated circuit thread, I wound up discussing this (to some extent) with @millercarbon  and I told him about a power conditioner I bought around 25 years ago called the Promethean Audio Products Power Flo (sorry MC, I got the name slightly wrong) and he suggested that in the interim I use that as my strip.  What I neglected to tell him was that it occasionally arcs at the outlet when unplugging/plugging it in, and I am a bit leery of it.

Here is where my previous novel I had typed disappeared on me, so I am not going to try to pate any links this time,  but price is a consideration and MD sells the Furman PST-*D Power Station (8 outlets) for $269 + tax which is withing my range, but it says to use only on 15A circuits (meaning I would have to put a 15A outlet & breaker on either end of the 12-2 that makes up my one dedicated circuit.

MD also sells, for $40 + tax, the Audioquest IEC-3 power strip (three outlets) and I guess I would need two of them (plus two cords) as one of the reviews say that the outlets are too close together to use all three of them at once.

Are either of these an acceptable (meaning minimal degradation) method to add outlets to one dedicated circuit?  Are there any other methods (excluding multiple hundreds or thousands of dollars on a power conditioner) that I could consider?

In a reply to this post, I am going to attempt to paste links to the two options I just mentioned.

 

 

 

immatthewj
erik_squires
16,388 posts
 

Hi OP,

The idea between dirty and clean power has more to do with the power supplies. The extremes are things like LED lights and Ethernet switches.  These tend to have really noisy power supplies which clutter up the AC line.  So even with just 1 power strip I'd try to keep those out of the audio zone. Now a high end SACD player doesn't use these noisy wall warts so I'd prbably be OK with it in the clean zone.

I should also point out that these issues tend to be noticeable after a couple of days.  Try in and out and see which sounds best to you.

But also, I am paranoid about surges so I keep all my audio and video gear on a surge protector.

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immatthewj OP
2,304 posts
 

With that typed, I was ASSUMING that a 20A breaker should not only be in front of, at minimum, 12 gauge wire, but also a 20A breaker.

@jea48 thanks for getting back to me. The above was a bit of a typo that I can no longer correct on the post it was posted to, I meant that I was ASSUMING that a 20A breaker should be in front of 12 gauge wireand a 20A outlet.  But I'll leave that alone for now.

The duplex receptacle came from Lowes and were therefore nothing special.

Cover plate is plastic.

I installed the breakers myself and I put them on the leg the window AC and the drier and the kitchen is not on. 

I JUST NOW went to my panel to refresh my memory.  On the leg that I put those THREE DEDICATED LINES on, there are only three other breakers.  Two of them (and this may be confusing) are for TWO OF THE THREE dedicated lines I put in 25 years ago.  I have been up in the attic working with them and they are now going to be three dedicated lines in my living room.  Meaning they will basically not be used for anything or be used infrequently.  So I don't see a problem with them, and, as a matter of fact, when I finally finish up in the attic and hook them up to their three breakers, I can turn them 'off' and they will definitely be out of the picture.  There is one other breaker on that leg, and I just turned it 'off' and did a walk through, and for the life of  me, I canot find anything that isn't working!  And this is a small house!  So I am leaving 'off' as well (unless I accidentally figure out what it powers) , and it should be out of the picture.

I was thinking about putting them at the bottom of that leg, and now I don't know why I didn't.  I think I left myself enough Romex available in the attic that I can move them down and block off those openings in the panel.  But now, after that last paragraph I just inserted, I am thinking that I probably don't need to?

I can check voltage with a MM, anyway.  I am assuming to select AC volts on the MM for that.

I have one more session up in the attic (I keep saying 'just one more) (this is NOT a fun attic to work in) and then some rerouting at the panel itself, and then I can put my listening room back together (the panel actually resides in that room and I am also using that room as a staging area of sorts for all the work I am doing, therefore crap is all over the place in there) and then I can start listening, as you suggest, and try to make some determinations.

Thanks again for getting back to me, you are always most helpful.

immatthewj OP
2,304 posts
 

@erik_squires   thanks for getting back to me.  Only 4 things will be on these/this circuit(s).  My SA10 SACD player, my pre, my amp and my powered sub.  So going by your above post, nothing really needs to be segregated from anything else?  And I did go to the link you had for surge protection . . . my memory gets shorter every day, but I believe that was the Tripp Lite?

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