Electrician Coming Over What to Do?

Glen, you're getting a little flippant in your earlier post regarding your 20+ years in this trade, other's infinite wisdom, etc.. I assume you directed at least part of that in my direction as a result of one or more of my post(s).

Regardless of your trade, I'll direct the same questions and statements to you as I did to Natalie a few posts above. (Please see my previous post.)

But bottom line is: I have 3 passive in-line power conditioners and 3 dedicated circuits/lines. One for each component. Several weeks ago, I removed one of my in-line power conditioners from my dedicated 20amp amplifier line and ran straight from the service panel to the amp via a 20 amp IEC plug at the end of the romex and it sounded distinctively worse.

I ran this test because if I could sell $2k worth of line conditioners and not have extra little boxes hanging around, and perhaps upgrade my IC's and speaker cables with the money saved, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

Assuming I really did the above and the results were as I described, then it seems to me that two of us are wrong and one of us is right.

Now it's entirely possible that I have the noisiest AC this side of the Mississipi River, and perhaps that makes me the exception. And perhaps you and Natalie have some of the cleanest AC making you two the exception. But I wouldn't bank on it.

You said earlier that after you installed your dedicated lines, you pulled your line conditioners and you did not notice any difference.

Great. What brand and model line conditioner(s)?
And what components were in your system at the time you made this change?

There are certainly other questions to be asked to help qualify your statement above. But I would think your answers to the above would at least provide better idea where you are coming from regarding the subject matter of this post than simply stating your qualifications as being an electrician by trade for 20+ years.

-IME

Glen: As you know, i'm not an electrician, nor do i play one on TV or Audiogon : )

I guess i should have clarified that each circuit should have its' own hot, neutral and ground to minimize series resistance and negate any possibility of wire saturation. Sharing neutrals would increase cross-talk between circuits and could result in the situation that you described. This would also cut down on the noise isolation characteristics that we are trying to achieve by going to dedicated / isolated lines. I guess that i took for granted that one would know enough to do make sure that this was done, but i guess i took too much for granted. Thank you for bringing this up.

As to your comments about common neutrals and electrical fires, i just read an article about this. It seems that the massive influx of switching power supplies, digital gear, etc... is playing major havoc with house wiring and the power companies nowadays. I am thinking that there will have to be some major changes to the various local and national power and wiring codes in the near future to try and alleviate these and other potential problems. Have you seen / read / experienced any problems with this type of situation ?

Natalie / Glen: I think that your experiences are more the exception than the norm when it comes to dedicated lines and noise reduction. While i do agree that dedicated lines will lower the noise being fed into the system, i still think / have experienced major amounts of noise being pumped in on dedicated lines. If one is in a heavily populated area and / or has any type of industry nearby, there is nothing short of heavy filtering that will remove / negate the noise that is coming down the line. With that in mind, I have to ask: "what makes you think that running separate breakers / lines from the other circuits in your house would remove all of the other outside interference that is already present on the mains" ?

No matter how many lines you have hooked up or parallel paths the noise can take, it will go wherever the current is drawn. If your system is drawing current, i'll bet that there is noise on the line feeding it. That is, unless you are operating from a bank of batteries and a high powered inverter ( i need not mention names here : )

As mentioned in another current AC noise thread here on Agon, one could / should check into just how "quiet" their AC is by using a "Noise Sniffer". I have actually witnessed a name brand "Power Line Conditioner" / "Noise Filter" introduce MORE noise into the system than if a device was plugged directly into the wall. The "Noise Sniffer" can actually help you to track down sources of noise within your own house. It helped me to identify what was "sneaking through" an otherwise "excellent" PLC.

Drubin: My comments are based on the fact that many "isolated grounds" are installed in areas far away from where the ground that is connected to the main breaker box is installed. As such, there is the potential for a vast difference in ground conductivity to exist. In such a case, the difference in conductivity will result in a voltage potential being placed on the chassis of anything that is connected to either ground IF there is a connection made between the two grounds. These voltages can be quite high, resulting in noise being generated, ground loops, hum, etc... Under specific conditions, such a combo could become lethal. THAT is why it is "illegal" in most places to have multiple grounds.

To reduce the potential for such a situation to exist AND keep your dedicated / isolated ground, one should install a ground rod as close as possible to where the mains are grounded. While this may raise series resistance to ground a little bit in terms of the distance that it must travel from your audio system, one can get around this by running a heavier gauge wire. What this accomplishes is that both grounds ( the mains and the dedicated outlets ) share common ground conductivity. This minimizes the difference in ground potential between the two, yet allows you to keep them separate. If a building inspector "wanders by", he would probably throw a fit and tell you that the two grounds need to be tied together, which really isn't a big deal either. Since they would be joined right at the point of Earth entry, cross-talk from the mains and dedicated lines should be shunted anyhow. It is only when circuits share a common ground that is long in length or resistive before being shunted to Earth that noise becomes a problem in most cases.

While i'm on the subject of grounding, i would suggest that once everything is installed and verified to be working properly, i would take steps to waterproof / insulate your ground rod / wire termination. Since this is going to take place at ground level and probably outdoors, it will be exposed to all of the elements i.e. rain, dew, possibly snow, etc... As such, a corroded ground is just as bad as no ground in my book. Just remember that whatever you use to seal up this connection should be easily removable as it might have to be taken off for system maintenance, etc...

Also, you might have gathered that one should install good sized conduit if doing this from scratch. This would allow you to pull as much wire as needed now and leave room to move in terms of "wiring upgrades" or additional circuits in the future. Better and cheaper to do it "right" the first time than to have regrets later.

If i have made any mistakes in this, PLEASE take the time to correct me. As i stated, i'm not an electrician and as we all know, AC can be extremely dangerous. Not only do i want to learn what will work "best", i want it to be done in what is the safest and ( hopefully ) most legal manner possible. Hope this clarifies a few things and helps some of you out. Sean
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Great and timely (for me) thread. While the discussion moved past it unnoticed, I just want to question Stehno's point no. 6 about experimenting with floating the grounds for sonic differences. I would not recomend lifting/floating/disconnecting grounds - they are there for a reason. There are no sonic differences at all when you are dead. Thanks to everyone for all the other great info!

Sean's comment about the isolated grounds has scared me (I'm about to have this work done at my house too). I don't want to have to think about this stuff down the line, whether or not it's safe to puta compoent in the system that may be plugged into some other outlet. Better to not go with isolated grounds, then?

Another question: if you are running multiple lines, do you usually run each to a single duplex and leave the jumpers in place, or do you break the jumpers and run a separate line to each individual outlet? Dan.

Hi again, Sean brings up a good point when he said there is a lot of noise being transmitted in the big city areas via the power lines and that some of it is coming through to your system. I happen to live in a small town in the Santa Cruz Mountains where everything is fresh and clean including the power.

I honestly don't believe I can get the noise floor any lower except maybe by stuffing a sock in my kids mouths ;^).

I would however like to purchase one of those sniffers. It might help when trouble shooting friends systems.

Drubin, fear not the isolated ground, it's the best way to go in my opinion. Even if you can only isolate back to your service (meter) it will work wonders. Just make sure your receptacles are I.G. rated.

Sean makes another good point on conduit size. Hindsight tells me I should have run 1" to my two systems. I ran 3/4 and now the conduit is getting pretty full. I'd like to add four more circuits since I've added more stuff into my system. I guess I'll make due with what I have for now.

Everyone seems to have an opinion on wire type and size. If anyone ever asked me to run #10 solid to there gear which was less than 200' from the source I'd tell them to stuff it. Unless they were paying cash of course :^)

Did I mention how long I've been doing this? 20+ years!!!