Your One Bullet Point Solution; Electrical Upgrade


Two points; I am well aware of many threads on topic of electrical service. I do not have time to read hundreds of posts, but wish to distill them down with your help. I will also post this on the Misc Forum to get wider response:

Doing service upgrade to 100A. I plan on adding a whole house surge protector, type 2, add on to panel after the service enters house. Panel to the HT/Music room is not under consideration, as it was all updated when the room was built. 

If anyone has important info/contradictory info on that plan, please inform. 

What I would like to know in shorthand form from the community from those who have Done upgrades:

1. Recommended Panel? Brand, any difference? 

2. I currently have sub-panel for HT/Audio room which I'm tempted to keep. I understand that this is a good move. 
Electrician can sum all into a larger panel, but I have reservations. Comments/recommendations? 

3. Particular wiring/breakers for panel/sub-panel for audio use? 

4. Particular surge protector recommend. 

As the topic has been covered much, notation form comments are welcome. Thanks for helping! 


douglas_schroeder
Right.(falconquest, not the other one) My experience is the more direct the better. The main advantage of a dedicated line is not the ability to provide more current. Our systems do not require anywhere near even a 15A draw let alone 20A. What we want is clean. The greatest source of noise by far is all the other wires in the house, and all the connections on the system circuit.

Normal house circuits are wired outlet to outlet. Every one of these outlet connections creates a little eddy current the power must go through on the way to the system. These connections are also a source of a lot of noise from micro-arcing . Eliminating all these extra connections is the single greatest advantage to running a dedicated line.

The next problem is every wire is an antenna, and all the wires in the house are connected to the same panel. So the more circuits and connections the more noise. This right here is the number one reason to not add a panel. Adding a panel is spending money to make noise worse not better. The panel does absolutely nothing to improve sound. How could it? Serious question.
This comes up a lot and every time it seems hardly anyone gets it. This in spite of the fact there’s a very simple test everyone can do to hear for themselves exactly what I am talking about. Simply go and listen to your system. Then go to the panel and flip off all the breakers not needed for the system. Go and listen again.

Flipping the breakers disconnected all the hot leads, roughly half the wire in the house. The other half, the neutral wires, those are all still connected together at the neutral bus bar in the panel. Don’t take my word for it, remove the cover and see for yourself. Its how they are all wired. Flipping off the breaker disconnected less than half the wires. Even so it was a huge and easy to hear difference. I know. I’ve demo’d this for people. Always they are shocked how much difference this makes.

Adding a panel is adding wires. When what you want is less wires not more. Again, don’t take my word for it. Takes like 10 minutes to try this and then you will know. How many will actually try? Based on past experience almost none. Most would rather pay big bucks for stuff they don’t need than spend even 10 minutes trying to understand what is going on. Oh well.
I'm doing 200amp.
Should have 40slots plenty
Will seriously consider the MOV panel solution. 

Have owners of isolation transformers found them worthwhile? I can do so between main panel and subpanel if I wish. 


THOUGHTS in regard to two options electrician is offering?
Both 200A
Both will have some form of surge protection at panel

Eaton CH Panel with space for an Eaton surge protection
-The Eaton panel has uses silver plated copper bus bar connection
-Breakers seem to be mounted directly onto neutral

Square D with QO breakers
-The Square D has a tin plated copper bus bar
-breakers seem to be wired in

My electrician plans on replacing the ground bars with copper.

Again, if there are noise problems I will probably add an isolation transformer and sub-panel.


QUESTION: So a load center can have more than one surge protection device? i.e. covering entire panel, and additional covering the circuits for the HT/audio room? The Siemens unit recommended by drlisz seems to do both entire panel and two circuits. Is that the same case with others, like the Eaton panel surge protector?


TODAY is panel install day! It took longer than I wanted to coordinate the electrician and city inspector, as well as power co. to handle the cut over. 
Oh, well. 

This afternoon is the inspection, and tomorrow is the cut over! 

This should be fascinating to see if, subjectively, there is any difference in the system's sound. Frankly, in the long run, it doesn't matter so much, as it is one of dozens of ways to influence the sound quality, and I will keep finding more of them. You work with what you have in that regard, and build from there. 

I just pray it's not noisy power lines... If so, I'll have to consider adding an isolation transformer. I'm not going to put up with noisy power. 

Power cords should sound even better! ;) 
“The main advantage of a dedicated line is not the ability to provide more current. Our systems do not require anywhere near even a 15A draw let alone 20A. What we want is clean.“

For not-so-efficient systems that require lots of current, you could see a few volts of drop in longer lines during dynamic peaks. How would this affect the performance of an amplifier? Would it be better to size the line as large as reasonably possible to keep the voltage as close to 120V at all times?