Dedicated 20 amp lines/should i use a sub panel

When I did my Listening room installation, I moved most the rest of the house circuits to a separate sub-panel - but I needed the space breaker wise.  If  you don't need the space just use your existing panel, but have your electrician tighten up all connections.

I ran 12/2 to the outlets but the longest run is only 20 feet of wire,  I have 9 dedicated lines, one leg of the incoming power is used for the tubed system,  4 circuits.  The other is for my SS system,  5 circuits including a 220V one.

I don't get caught up in the Outlet craze - use Leviton Industrial grade outlets.

Running separate dedicated lines will be the single most $ efficient upgrade to your system you can do, the second one will be room treatments.

Good Listening

Peter

Looks like I should expedite my plan to rewire the power cords on the power amps with new OFC cables including connecting the safety ground. I’ve been meaning to do it after changing the power cord on the preamp with very positive results. Thank you.

Thanks for your thoughts and questions, Jim.  Generally speaking a direct connection between AC safety ground and signal/circuit ground is an invitation to ground loop issues (both hum and high frequency buzz).  In good modern designs the two grounds are often connected to each other through a resistor having a resistance in the area of 10 to 100 ohms, which would probably be impractical to do in this case since chassis is used as signal/circuit ground in many places.  It would also stand a good chance of being sonically undesirable, due to the small impedances it might create between grounds at different circuit points within the amp.  So I would recommend that Noromance leave well enough alone, and if he chooses to upgrade the power cords on the amps that he **not** connect AC safety ground within them.

Also, regarding the "death cap" (and thanks to Imhififan for providing the good reference), it's worth noting in the photo of the underside of Nomance's amp that the cap has been replaced with a modern one.  So presumably leakage within that cap is not an issue.

But it doesn’t [hum] when I add my REL sub.

Noromance, what model is the sub, and if you are using the high-level Speakon connection what is the black wire connected to?

Also, if you want to pursue the hum issue further what you might try would be connecting each amp to its own dedicated line, with the two lines on the same AC leg, and then trying all four combinations of the orientations of their AC plugs. If the plugs are polarized or are 3-prong types, even though the safety ground is not used within the amps, for experimental purposes you could try that using cheater plugs.

Regards,
-- Al