Dedicated 20 amp circuit - Electrician laughed!


I brought my electrician out to my house today to show him where I would like to install a dedicated 20a circuit for my system.  He laughed and said that's the stupidest thing he's heard and laughs when people talk about it.  It said, if you're going to do it, you have to have it separately grounded (shoving a new 8 foot rod into the ground) but even then, he sees no way there can be an audible improvement.

Now, he's not just an electrician though. He rebuilds tube amps on the side and tears apart amps and such all the time so he's quite well versed in audio electronics and how they operate.

He basically said anyone who thinks they hear a difference is fooling themselves.  

Personally, I'm still not sure, I'm no engineer, my room's not perfect, and I can't spend hours on end critical listening...  But, he does kinda pull me farther to the "snake oil" side and the "suggestive hearing" side (aka, you hear an improvement because you want to hear it).

I'm not taking a side here but I thought it was interesting how definitive he was that this not only WILL not make a difference but ALMOST CANNOT make a difference. 
dtximages
About 3 months ago I had two (my amps and sources are about 20 feet apart) dedicated 20 amp circuits installed into my audio/media room.  It did make a very noticeable improvement in reduced noise and distortion that comes through as much clearer imaging and soundstage.  For my system goals, I am trying to get live music to be more three dimensional and lifelike, and for that objective, this was one of the most significant upgrades that I have done.

I spec'd to the electrician to use 10AWG wiring, and Synergistic Blue outlets, which similar to OP also made him laugh.  At that time he told me that was total overkill, but he was happy to do the work if I wanted.  When the work was done, I had him listen to the difference with a simplistic A/B of moving power cables from a single shared 15A circuit to the two dedicated circuits, and he could clearly hear the difference.  What stood out to him most was that music sounded noticeably more realistic through the new 20A circuits.

For my system and home environment, this made a very large improvement, and it was one of the best ~$2,000 investments I have made.  I had a lot of AC noise issues with other devices on that shared 15A circuit, and separating my analog audio made a big difference.  If I had done just one 15A dedicated circuit, I think it would have done just as much improvement though.  I believe that the main benefit has come from not having my analog two channel gear sharing a single circuit with two Mac mini's, a NAS server, and some other digital devices with noisy SMPS's.  It may not make as much improvement for others, but for me this has been a great upgrade...
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Laugh back....Get another electrician.

It makes a difference.  I had the electrician run 3 20 A circuits to Furutech outlets.  The extra wire and time for 2 additional runs did not add much to the cost.  I have a line for each amplifier and the 3rd for everything else.  In hindsight I might have done a 4th to separate the analog and digital components.

Keep it simple, don't worry about grounding or transformers.  You can always figure that out later if you want the challenge.

I just had a similar experience when I had to replace an antiquated master breaker panel. So I figured while I had 3 electricians here, I’d have them run an isolated 20A line to my listening room. I bought audiophile receptacles to fill a quad box and it all went smooth. Yes, the weirdest thing was two ground circuits (one new, one replacing the old original to meet code). I now have some very nice copper decorating the rear wall of my home.

I certainly had no idea what to expect from this move. I was really gambling a bit because it’s not cheap to do this. However, my experience over the past 50 years as an audiophile and high-end retailer has taught me the TRUTH: that any cable change causes changes in the final signal. So I was eager to get it going.

I use a big Odyssey Stratos DM power amp with the Mk II version of the Dynaudio Contour 60’s. Peachtree pre/DAC, streaming Qobuz.

To make a long story shorter, I listened critically every day and heard a slow but unmistakable improvement in all areas of sound quality we hold dear. In particular, the noise floor dropped audibly to blacker. It took about 30 days to plateau for me. I think it’s definitely worth it if you have an excuse like I did. Any audio freak doing new construction is even more insane if she doesn’t put it in the home’s elec specs.

Incidentally, my boss electrician did look at me sideways when I first told him what I wanted, but he didn’t even peep. His helper  electricians seemed to stifle a smile as they ran the lines. They had a real sucker!  I can only imagine what they would have said if I had asked for Cardas copper!

I say go for it!