HIGH Quality Electric Service Panel

I like Siemens for two reasons: (1) it's German, and (2) their high duty breakers and their regular breakers have the same part number. That means, IMO, that their regular breakers are made to high duty standards (i.e. 2000 on-off cycles).

My audio sub-panel is Siemens, and I also use their circuit breakers for on-off switches, and haven't had a failure, though it's only been 4 years.

I agree with cleeds: ground the panel with your house ground, or you may end up with a ground loop. Siemens, by the way, has a surge suppressor option.

Yep, Siemens and Square D offer in panel surge suppression, though I'd probably recommend it at the service entrance instead of a sub panel. The extra impedance of the line between the main panel and sub panel can keep the surge voltage high.

Always follow the NEC AND local codes. Always. If you don't know what that is, hire an expert who does.

Now one "trick" if affordable is instead to run a 220V line to a wall mounted step-down transformer instead. This will give you the lowest impedance, and a great deal of noise immunity. However it's so rarely done I doubt most electricians would be willing to do it in a home.

Best,


Erik

Plitron manufactures toroidal transformers. They are affiliated with Torus. Torus builds a dedicated toroidal powered breaker box. This 'box' is no different from your standard breaker box, except that it houses a toroid to purify the electricity going to your stereo.

In my opinion, this is an overthetop exercise. The top of the line Equi=tech stand alone unit does the same thing. The advantage of a stand alone unit: it's close to your gear. This way you have short runs of power cords, they won't pick up 'stray' signal (rfi).

I'm sure I'm not alone. Once you feed your gear 'balanced' power, you'll never go back. Try the Equi=tech, you'll be amazed.

I looked at balanced power; unfortunately it's just not in the budget.  

Thing is that toroids like to growl while they work. Not what you want in your music room.

Balanced power can be a good thing, unless the equipment manufacturer connected the neutral leg of AC to ground. With normal utility power that's not a problem, but with balanced?