Dedicated Line, Surge and Safety

You "believe" the electrical code for a 20A line only calls for 12 gauge, and you think it "should" be safer with 10 gauge. You actually mention twice that you think it "should" be safer. I'd love to hear your repsonse when his house catches fire. "Well, I thought it would be ok."

If you're not actually qualified to give factual, technical advice on house wiring, perhaps you should keep your "beliefs" to yourself.

That's right. But more importantly, I suggest that you set up TWO dedicated lines, in order to isolate digital components from analog...or at least use your pre-existing house line to maintain isolation. I also believe that using better cable (Teflon insulation) results in better performance most of the time. Many folks know that a cheap-insulation NEW dedicated line can take a long time to burn in, and that an OLD house line, if dedicated, will sound better. (DISCLAIMER: I sell Teflon-insulated Belden cable for dedicated line use). A good compromise might be to set up one Teflon 12AWG line and one 10-12AWG Romex one. Barring that, I'd install two 12AWG Romex instead of one 10AWG...again to allow separation of digital and analog....

10 gauge is not any more dangerous than 12 gauge ... it is in fact, safer. 12 gauge is the MINIMUM for 20 amps, not the only. 10 gauge will work fine - as long as it fits in the terminals on your receptacles.

Timo - 10/2 is the standard designation for 2 insulated 10ga wires in combination with an uninsulated ground wire. It's a three-wire cable.

Subaruguru - I'm interested in reading your explanation as to how two dedicated lines somehow isolate components from each other. If you put both lines on the same power leg to avoid ground potential problems, you're riding on the same big bus. Any noise or AC distortion is going to ride that bus, and every circuit on it will be affected. Neither the wire nor the circuit breaker have filters in them, and they flow current both ways.

So can you tell me how this constitutes isolation? If there's something I'm missing, please enlighten me.