Electrician Coming Over What to Do?

1. Never ask your electrician for his advice unless it's for purely safety reasons that will keep your house from burning to the ground. More than likely, he will laugh when you tell him what your goals are here.

2. Order your own 10 gauge 99.95% OFC romex from JPS or where ever and have it ready. Otherwise you'll get his cheap stuff and thereby defeating some of your purpose right off the bat.

3. Order some FIM or similar audio grade outlets now (all 20 amp).

4. 15 amp circuits should be more than sufficient for your source and pre.

5. Your amplifier is not a monster amp. 20 amps should be more than enough for this circuit. If you install a 30 amp circuit, it is entirely possible that your house will burn to the ground before the 30 amp circuit breaker ever trips.

6. Have your electrician install the grounds (isolated preferably). Then later you can go around to each plug and disconnect/float the grounds to determine sonic differences.

7. You might consider an industrial grade sub-panel (still cheap) rather than the cheap off-the-shelf sub-panel.

8. Anybody who tells you that a line conditioner is no longer needed once you have dedicated lines: A. Does not know what they are talking about. AND/OR B. Does not own equipment good enough to tell the difference.

My guess is both.

9. Observe your electrician to ensure that he does not accidentally mis-wire circuits and reverse polarity (hot to hot, neutral to neautral). My electrician did mis-wire my 15 amp and 20 amp circuits several years ago and I almost caught my toes on fire had I not double checked the circuit before playing with it.

10. If you think you may be adding a subwoofer or another component in the near future, have him wire a 4th circuit now.

-IMO

All the above advice is great. I only have one thing to add. PULL A PERMIT! Have the Licensed Electrician get an Electrical Permit from the local Building Department.

Vegasears
Senior Building Inspector
Clark County, Nevada

Stehno makes some very excellent points. However, i personally would not spend the money on the JPS cabling. While i do believe that AC cabling and geometry of said cabling can make a difference, i just don't think that it is an $18 per foot difference. I am currently looking for cabling that will perform optimally and not cost a fortune i.e. "the most bang for the buck". Along the same lines, i would look at the availability of various outlets. If you do go the dedicated ground routine, you may have to buy specialty outlets that float the ground connection separately from the conduit.

Obviously, the AC wiring and outlets are a matter of personal preferences / budget, so do what you think is best suited for your situation. I would stick with at least 10 gauge wire and nothing lighter though. You could use either 15 or 20 amp breakers using this approach, sizing them according to draw. This also takes into account safety precautions in terms of having a breaker so big that even "flaming" components would not trip it. Should you increase the load on a circuit that you originally install a 15 amp breaker on, you can always replace the breaker with a 20 amp and never be concerned about the wiring.

I would also add that you should remind the electrician that all of the circuits need to come off the same leg / phase of the circuit. In order to even out the load in the house, he may have to make some changes in your main breaker box.

Other than that, my experience is that dedicated lines do nothing to fight the noise that is already present coming in from the pole transformer. Such a set-up does offer an increased amount of isolation from other circuits within the building though. This can be further increased by running isolated grounds.

If you do go the isolated ground routine, you CAN NOT connect anything else to your audio system that is not plugged into your "standard" non-dedicated circuitry other than battery powered devices. Doing so would tie the two different grounds together, which could result in a lot of noise and what is even more important, a safety issue. As such, have all the lines put in now that you think you will ever need in the future.

I have never checked into "whole house surge supression", so i can't comment on that aspect of your question. I do not think it is a "bad idea", only that i'm sure that there are several different ways and products to achieve this. If you are interested in such an item, i would start researching it as soon as possible. The electrician may not be able to install such a device now, but he can do all of the necessary prep so that he would not have to "undo" all that he dows now to install such a device at a later date. Sean
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I'm an Electrician by trade and basically I agree with everything Natalie said.

I sold a couple pricey power conditioners after putting in six dedicated I.G. 20 amp circuits in my home.

If you want to know what else I think on this subject matter do a search on some of my "tech talk" threads.

Be forewarned I only have 20+ years of experience and can't compete with others having infinite knowledge of this subject matter.

Hey Natalie how long have you been an electrician?

Stehno, If you feel a power conditioner is still needed then your Electricain did not do a good job.
The point of an dedicated line is to have power with no noise on the circuit from other gear. So once this is done. What will the conditioner do. Make the power 1% better Maybe.
I have heard many a great system without the aid Of Power Conditioning. If your gear needs it to sound good I would suggest Better made Gear.