Dedicated lines — how many? Other advice?

Use one direct (dedicated) line for the audio. This will be your high end system line. Everything connected to this system must be plugged into this circuit. Nothing else. This is to a) provide the best power and b) avoid ground loop hum and other noise problems.  

Everything else can be on as many circuits wired however you want. I would recommend one circuit for lights, one for all other outlets, and plug all the other stuff (video, etc) into those other outlets. 

Do not use more than one line for the audio. Use one power conditioner and plug everything into that one AC source. Does not matter how you group components. (There is a lot of misinformation around all these topics. Study my system. See who has what experience. Nuff said.) 

Skip the surge suppressor. Waste of money.  Spend it where it will do more good. Get the Decware Zen https://www.decware.com/newsite/ZLC.html

Use 10awg wire, 20A, and do not stress the details. For what you can spend on stuff you will never hear you can buy one fuse that will make a hundred times more difference. I know. I have wired my room several different ways and heard what all these different things actually do. There is more benefit to a good AC outlet for less money and work than what you can do paying an electrician, trying to convince him, etc.   

Try and keep some perspective. The single biggest improvement by far is to run the one line direct. Otherwise, electricians will always wire a circuit to go from outlet to outlet in a daisy chain of connections. Eliminating all these connections is by far the biggest gain. I have wired my room at least three different ways, including ripping it all out and having all the wire cryogenically treated. By far the biggest improvement was that first step of running the line direct. So do what you want but realize there are things that are extremely cost effective, and then there is a lot of other stuff that you could do way better with the same money any of a dozen other ways. 

Thank you for the advice so far. Since the entire room is being wired I do not think it will cost anything much more to run more than one dedicated line if that seems best. I see arguments for and against that so far but cost is not going to be a factor I don’t think so I could run more than one or just one whatever is most advantageous to the sonic outcomes.

on another thread much earlier in the year or, last year, at least a half dozen people recommended getting a whole house suppressor to protect gear, not just for the audio system, but for protection elsewhere in the house. But you are saying skip it, MIller?

Run at least two dedicated 20 amp lines, you can always Revert back to one line if you think it sounds better. I have 6 in my dedicated audio room, and I don't have any ground loops.

How many lines again, Michael? https://youtu.be/H07NpWk_Xf8?t=947

Surge suppressors? Almost everything electrical it is low voltage that causes problems not high. All my sensitive electronics from computers to CPAP run right off 240 when I travel just fine. The reason is they all have power supplies. The first thing that happens in a power supply the voltage goes through a transformer that steps it up or down to whatever the device requires. It then goes through diode rectifiers that convert AC to DC, which is stored in power supply caps. Voltage surges do nothing but help the caps charge faster.

That's if the voltage surge is from say 120V to 240V, which is a pretty big surge, but nothing can't be handled fine anyway. So surge suppressor no good.

What if you are hit by lightning? Then the surge can be 60kV, 100kV, the skies the limit. This kind of voltage takes out your roof or wherever it hits, and arcs right through your circuits in a surge so big and fast only seriously designed protection is gonna do any good- and maybe not even then. Go look at what a direct hit can do.

People buy these because it makes them feel so good to imagine they are maybe gonna be safe from something that in all likelihood never will happen, and are willing to pretend this all comes at no cost in terms of sound quality.

We spend thousands and go to great lengths to run a direct line to eliminate extra connections and the noise they introduce, then turn around and believe none of that matters any more because, "surge suppressor". 

But fear will cause people to do all kinds of things. Remember your Dune: "Fear is the mind-killer."

Continued thanks for the advice. I looked back at some earlier threads about this and found the following. There is some good confirmation of one dedicated line from Almarg and some other views about more than one. There is confirmation of a whole house suppressor from Almarg and another member. Still listening.

dletch2455 posts
04-26-2021 12:15pm
To understand lighting / surge protection, you have to think of the path from outside your house all the way to equipment.

Whole home surge protection is an excellent idea and one I have myself. They can withstand very large event. Not a direct hit, but a fairly close hit. Let’s say you get a surge a ways away, perhaps your whole home unit clamps the peaks to 1000V. The inductance/resistance in the house wires is enough that the small amount of surge protection in your electronics will protect them. Now let’s say you get a close hit. Your whole home unit now clamps to 2000V. Unfortunately, even with your house wire this is enough to blow some of the electronics.

Now if you add local surge protection in a power bar, your whole house protects to 2000, and then the local surge unit perhaps to 1000, which is what enters your equipment which survives. If you didn’t have the whole home, the local surge would say take 4000V, and pass 2500 to the equipment destroying it.

It is not unusual to lose home appliances in surge events.

************
 

itsjustme313 posts
03-12-2020 6:06pm
Oops, one mroe thing. Put dirty things (computers, digital streamers, your Roon core) on another circuit, on the other side of the filter. Otherwise you are locking the noise **in** :-)

************  

lalitk2,802 posts
05-01-2020 8:36am
@hilde45,

If you’re going to go through the trouble of running dedicated power line, I suggest you run two dedicated lines. One for Analog and the other one for digital. Once you do, install high quality passive power distributor (strips) for each line. As far as surge protection goes, install protection at breaker box, all the sub-par power strips with surge protection are worthless. This is one area, one shouldn’t go cheap or cut corners.

*************

almarg
05-03-2020 6:54pm
FWIW, in my particular case I believe that the quality of my incoming AC is relatively good, as there is no commerce or industry within more than two miles of my house and nearly all of the town is zoned two-acre residential. So I’ve chosen to adopt a "less is more" approach to power conditioning (no regenerators for me!), but without compromising the protection of my system.

What I’ve done is as follows:

-- Installed an Audience aR2p Surge Suppressor/Conditioner ($695).
-- Installed a Wiremold UL210BC Power Strip ($71) to expand the two outlets of the Audience to 10.
-- Plugged a Shunyata Venom Defender ($225) into one of the outlets of the power strip, to attenuate noise that may be generated by digital components and the power amp and fed back into their power cords, from whence it could potentially couple into other components.
-- Installed a single 20 amp dedicated line, which powers the entire system via the Audience.
-- FWIW a "SyCon" whole house surge protector was installed by an electrician at the service panel, when I had him replace the entire panel a few years ago.

As I said I’m in an area that presumably has relatively clean power, so this approach may or may not be a good one in other circumstances. But it works well for me.

Best regards,
-- Al

**************
One thread is here: https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/extra-power-or-cleaner-power