Dedicated power circuits... Huge improvement!!!


One would think spending money on dedicated lines to your audio gear is foolish and the last thing you want to spend money on but I would recommend it to be first inline. Sure it’s easy to purchase cables and whatever else imaginable and I’m certainly in the same league. But what I can say is after chasing what’s going to make a difference, I found you have to start with the source. If your gear isn’t happy with a good feed, you’ll never notice any other changes you make(at least to a lesser degree). I just had an electrician run 2 dedicated circuits with solid copper awg10 and I connect it to Maestro outlets and initially I thought it was a waste of money. Well, it took about an hour before the new circuits started to settle in and that’s when the magic started to happen. There was more separation between the instruments, everything sounded more real and lifelike and dynamic. It appeared as though the overall volume was a bit less but really what I heard is less background “hash” which makes for a more enjoyable listening experience. Certain instruments have more attack and separation. Bass is tighter and seems to dig a bit deeper. I know this sounds crazy but I think my amp is now very happy with a good solid power source and now I think changing cables may make more of a difference.

Rick
128x128rickraymond59
I totally agree that dedicated power circuits are the way to go and I'll add and/or agree to have at least two dedicated circuits if not three wired with 10 gauge wire and some type of quality AC outlets of your choice.
Although I heard a large improvement in my own systems as did many of my friends I have read some posts here on Audiogon that others did not hear a difference in their own systems however that seems to be a small minority.
If a amp ,preamp and dac are on a circuit that does not have any lights in line  or receptacles used  will there be an improvement by going "dedicated "? Would this be considered a "dedicated Line" or is more involved ?
A dedicated line is a direct "homerun" line from the power panel to an outlet (at least that's what my electrician termed it), no branching or serial connections of outlet boxes.  I added one in my old home in the early '90's and was underwhelmed by it - - no better, no worse, it seemed. 

After a few years I had read about inductive loops in a wire, and I remembered that I had coiled up extra romex to allow for a longer placement of the line some day, should I so choose. I spent 20 minutes truncating that extra coil, and, wow!  What an immediately obvious improvement!  Greater clarity and microdynamic "fleshing out" of the music.  An obvious improvement, without doubt.  My ignorant building of an inductor for my power feed was a clear mistake.

I have implemented 10 ga. Romex in my new home's dedicated room for all outlets, and that has been my baseline for years.  I tried a Topaz isolation transformer (5 kVa) inserted into my main line and it seemed to offer a mild improvement in clarity and separation of musical lines.  I then wired it for balanced feed, and it seemed to offer another mild step forward.

More recently I pulled the transformer out and plugged a PS Audio P10 regenerator into the dedicated outlet and that has worked beautifully for me, even with two mono blocks plugged into it.  I definitely prefer it to the transformered line alone.  FWIW.
I'm just going to through this out there for whatever it's worth and people can consider and/or think about this:
I have 5 high quality dedicated outlets in my main listening room 2 in a secondary system room and 1 for an audio/visual setup in a third room. I use to clean the power from my main circuit box to my sub-box using 2 Extreme Isolation Transformers (5 kVA each) in-between the main circuit box and the sub-box.
I own and still have an Equitech 2Q and an Equi=Core 1800 among 3 other devices. I have read on Audiogon that others use to own the PS Audio P10 (which I'm sure is a very good unit but I do not own one nor have I ever been someplace where the P10 was used) the P10 was replaced by the Equi=Core 1800 which is a lot more affordable than the P10 and the Equitech 2Q. I'm just saying that it's something to consider for about half the price with very good if not better results.