Dedicated lines — how many? Other advice?


We're redoing our basement and adding an additional panel. This room will become a media room. I may be video and audio at different ends of the room if possible. Not sure.

To be powered:

Video

1. TV
2. AVR

Audio:

1. R & L Monoblock tube amps
2. Preamp
3. DAC
4. CD transport
5. Streamer
6. 3 Subwoofers

QUESTIONS:

(a) Does everything on the list need a dedicated line? Could all benefit? (Including the TV and AVR). Or can I skip the video stuff.

(b) How many dedicated lines for the audio alone? How would you group components on each line?

(c) Any other advice?

Here is the advice I've gathered so far (some from the web, some from A'gon):

  • Get a whole house surge suppressor put in.
  • Use the heaviest gauge copper Romex you can use, never less than 12 gauge and typically 10 gauge (the lower the gauge number the thicker the wire conductors).
  • Use a 20 amp breaker for even the lowest draw source equipment feed.
  • Make sure the power lines are balanced on each side of the power panel.
  • Don't let them staple the wire to the 2x4's inside the walls….Work out some other solution that neither uses ferrous metal fasteners nor pinches the wiring when secured to the framing. The physical pinching can lead to a somewhat narrower audio bandwidth…
128x128hilde45
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.
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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** :-)

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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.
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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

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One thread is here: https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/extra-power-or-cleaner-power
FYI, VH Audio in USA and Audio Sensibility in Canada sell cryo-treated 10awg Romex.