Instructions to electrician about dedicated line

I agree that several dedicated 20 amp lines will give you versatility in the future. I recently had three 20 amp lines added for my audio/video equipement in our living room. Because the main panel from our house was over 25 feet from the equipment position and fairly full (no room for three circuits all in phase with one another) we installed a 60 amp subpanel in the basement under the living room, and ran the dedicated circuits directly to that (therefore much shorter run of wire to the subpanel than would have been necessary to the main panel). Use 10 gauge wire-- it'll sound better. And (for what it's worth) we had Cutler-Hammer whole house surge protectors installed on both main and subpanels. Avoids the need for point of installation surge protection (I use a Hydra, which does without) and adds peace of mind in thunderstorm season without (as far as I can tell) affecting the sound.

If you are starting from scratch, install a 100 amp sub-panel off of the main breaker box. You can then run as many 15 or 20 amp circuits as is necessary. I'd use 10 gauge for all the runs regardless of the amperage rating of the breaker. If possible, twisted pairs would offer additional noise cancelling and rfi protection. Stick with 15 amp breakers for line level components, digital components, etc... The only ones that would ever benefit from a 20 amp breaker would be a big amp that is being pushed hard. Using this approach, you could literally have four 15 amp lines and two 20 amp lines at your disposal. All of this on dedicated lines. Make sure that each outlet is wired with its' own hot and neutral with each sharing a common ground amongst them. Some electricians will run dedicated hots and share neutrals. Sean
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If you can afford it, use BX and make it 10 ga.

Run 220 vac if you can to iso transformers for step down.

OR, use a single large ISO tranny in the basement to provide
local power... isolate each line with an RFI/EMI filter.

Put a big ass GROUND wire on your main service, and use
a real copper ground rod, have the earth prepared properly too.

MORE is always better in AC power.

Time out for a question!?!?!!!Does going with dedicated 20 amp lines allow for use of power conditioners like say PS Audio 600 or can they not use this much current?Thought I had read somewhere that these devices could not handle this amount of current but to do it anyway as dediucated lines would have greater impact on sound just don't waste $$ on conditioners latter?
As (almost) always great thread
Chazzbo

Chazzbo, the current draw on a 20 amp line is a maximum of 20 amps (then the fuse blows). The actual current draw depends on the equipment being hooked up to it and will generally be much less than 20 amps in any typical home system. You are, I believe, correct in stating that the PS Audio 600 is not designed to handle the maximum amperage a 20 amp line can deliver (it translates to about 2200 watts). But it also won't be able to handel all the amperage a 15 amp line can deliver (about 1650 watts). That's OK so long as the equipment being hooked up toe the PS Audio 600 does not demand more than the 600 can deliver (BTW, you can still use the other outlet on a duplex plug for other things). Why get 20 amps? In my mind, for future upgrades only -- and probably for big power amps only. Sean makes a good point about mixing and matching on a dedicated subpanel.