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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
douglas_schroeder OP
3,281 posts
 
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! ;) 
mkgus's avatar
mkgus
324 posts
 
“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?
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cleeds
5,986 posts
 
mkgus
For not-so-efficient systems that require lots of current, you could see a few volts of drop in longer lines during dynamic peaks.
Quite so!
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?
Yes. Derating the wire is accepted practice. NEC specifies only the minimum standards for electrical safety and performance.
mkgus's avatar
mkgus
324 posts
 
Good point. Code books tell you what you need to keep things safe and working. They don’t tell you what you need for high end audio performance. Has anyone written a book or article on this? What is an acceptable voltage drop? Do different types of amplifiers fare better than others with voltage drop on the mains? I would guess switching class D with feedback would be less affected than class A/B, for example.
douglas_schroeder OP
3,281 posts
 
The service up grade is done! So far, I'm very happy with the sound - as long as the sound works. From what I can tell, the Internet over power line devices are not locking on the signal as sent from the router through the power lines and then back to Ethernet in the room. 

This worked perfectly previously, but now these devices will not hold a lock on the signal. They work for a minute or so, allowing ROON to connect the server/streamer, then drop it. Would the power change from 60A to 200A have any effect on that? 

I wonder if the IOP devices got compromised. I did have to replace a set of them a couple years ago, and the diagnostics were similar. I'm not too worried about things, as the first moments of hearing the system were great, and the fact that it was playing at all is proof that it should work consistently eventually. 

Thoughts? 
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