Hi. Dedicated grounds are always best, run large copper conductors(minimum 10 gauge or smaller) to a copper ground rod, ask you electrician buddy about installing one, they are cheap, but sometimes hard to find. If no ground rod is possible, run dedicated ground to your water pipe, before your water meter, and make sure that your lines coming in from the road are copper or metalic. Also, attach dedicated ground BEFORE any other grounds that may be attached to your water pipe.
The PS Audio Power Ports are excellent, but, the most improvements heard with an accessory like this depends on the quality and resolution of your system components. You know, is your gear going to benefit from the costs of the Power Ports? Or are you going to upgrade down the road and be able to use the PS outlets to thier maximum potential? Either way, they are excellent, and if you are installing dedicated lines anyhow, and have the extra money, why not install them?
Also, top quality after market power cords can do wonders, but thats another story, and they should be investigated.
I would suggest running 3 or 4 dedicated lines for your system, if you have the spare spaces in your board. Use 12 guage, or less, solid core conductors, and Audiophile in wall conductors would also be nice, but pricey, but not neccesary. Use the 20 amp breakers, some say 30 amp breakers, but be careful, the breaker will not trip on overload until, well, ask your electrician about it! But we all agree that the 20 amp breakers sound better than the standard 15 amp jobs.
You can also try the system with everything on the same phase, unless you have monoblocks, in which case you could try running the amps on opposite phase, for a poormans balanced scheme. But many agree that everything on the same phase sounds real nice, but perhaps the HT system would not benefit too much by this, but keep you 2 channel on the same phase unless you have mono amps.
Definately keep your digital on one dedicated circuit, amps on another, then your analog/preamp equipment on another.
Especially the digital needs to be isolated, but if you are using power conditioners, this may help alot, if you cannot efficiently isolate everything. But the digital isolation should have priority, then the preamp(s), then the amp(s).
The HT5000 has some isolated outlets for digital, and I would still use them, perhaps to take the edge off the digital, but I still might want to isolate the HT5000 on its own dedicated 20 amp line, and keep the digital on it, and perhaps some other non-priority sources.
Many preamps sound better without power conditioning, experimenting may be in order, its up to your ears.
Also, you could probably plug the TV into the Monster unit, should make a difference, just check the power ratings of the units.
As always, check things out with a liscensed electrician, and check your local state/fire/electrical codes first.
You could get by on 2 dedicated lines, but 3 or 4 would be much better, especially since you seem serious about the install.
Peace.
Regards, Bill M.
