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Another dedicated circuit question

(I just wrote a novel, and I tried to paste a couple of links, and the whole thing disappeared, so as I type slowly and poorly, I am going with the condensed version this time.)

About 25 years ago I put in three dedicated circuits for my gear.  (That was before I had a PC & internet, so I am sure that I must have gotten the idea from Stereophile, and as with all things, I thought bigger was better and more was best.)  Recently I have been reading a number of dedicated circuit threads and discovered that I had made numerous errors.  Therefore I have been up in my attic and into my panel for the last week or so removing, replacing, and rerouting and I was about done

and then

I found out that three dedicated lines was another mistake I made.  No biggy:  I bought a lot of Romex and other stuff I didn't need and spent some extra time I didn't need to spend, but I can rectify the three-circuit-RFI that I introduced by turning 'off' two of my three system circuit breakers.  Right?

But my question is:  since I need four outlets (digital source, pre, amp, powered sub) is the BEST solution to put another outlet in series with my one dedicated outlet?

Are there any power-strip solutions that are of an acceptable grade?  After the last dedicated circuit thread, I wound up discussing this (to some extent) with @millercarbon  and I told him about a power conditioner I bought around 25 years ago called the Promethean Audio Products Power Flo (sorry MC, I got the name slightly wrong) and he suggested that in the interim I use that as my strip.  What I neglected to tell him was that it occasionally arcs at the outlet when unplugging/plugging it in, and I am a bit leery of it.

Here is where my previous novel I had typed disappeared on me, so I am not going to try to pate any links this time,  but price is a consideration and MD sells the Furman PST-*D Power Station (8 outlets) for $269 + tax which is withing my range, but it says to use only on 15A circuits (meaning I would have to put a 15A outlet & breaker on either end of the 12-2 that makes up my one dedicated circuit.

MD also sells, for $40 + tax, the Audioquest IEC-3 power strip (three outlets) and I guess I would need two of them (plus two cords) as one of the reviews say that the outlets are too close together to use all three of them at once.

Are either of these an acceptable (meaning minimal degradation) method to add outlets to one dedicated circuit?  Are there any other methods (excluding multiple hundreds or thousands of dollars on a power conditioner) that I could consider?

In a reply to this post, I am going to attempt to paste links to the two options I just mentioned.

 

 

 

immatthewj
jea48
4,515 posts
 

@immatthewj

, on page 3 of the instruction manual (pdf) is where it says to connect it to a 15A outlet.

"4. The PST-8 should only be connected to a 120 VAC, 60Hz, 15
amp grounded electrical outlet."

"Connected to a 120V 60Hz 15 amp grounded electrical outlet...

Doesn’t say anything about the ampacity of the circuit. Two or more 15 amp receptacles can be installed on a 20 amp branch circuit. A 15A duplex receptacle is two 15 amp outlets.

The plug on the power cord of the PST-8 is a NEMA 5-15P 15A plug. The NEMA 5-15P plug will plug into a 20 amp outlet.

You meet all the requirements:

120V -------- Yes

60Hz -------- Yes

Grounded -- Yes

15 amp outlet --Yes. (20A outlet will accept a 15A or 20A plug.)

You are good to go.

.

immatthewj OP
2,314 posts
 

Thanks, @jea48 , as I previously typed: electrical is a weak subject for me.

After that first of about three ’dedicated circuit’ threads, one of the things I THOUGHT I came away with was that a 20A breaker meant a 20A circuit & needed a 20A outlet (along with a minimum of 12-2 in between). I do remember stating that I had THOUGHT that I was legitimate with a 15A breaker protecting 12-2 wired to a 20A outlet (which I thought was even safer, as a 15A breaker should trip even earlier), and it finally being beat into my thick head that the 15A breaker meant a 15A circuit, regardless of what size wire, so the outlet should be 15A as well for legal reasons. With that typed, I was ASSUMING that a 20A breaker should not only be in front of, at minimum, 12 gauge wire, but also a 20A breaker.

Regardless, thank you for clarifying that for me.

immatthewj OP
2,314 posts
 

@erik_squires  I often read to hastily & miss detail.

I was back into your blog and rereading some more, and after clicking on links that took me to Amazon, I note that the PST-8D at MD has a couple of digital outlets (obviously to put a CD/SACD player in a different zone than the clean stuff?) versus the PST-8 at Amazon.

jea48
4,515 posts
 

@immatthewj said:

I was ASSUMING that a 20A breaker should not only be in front of, at minimum, 12 gauge wire, but also a 20A breaker.

That is correct. The breaker determines the ampere rating of the circuit. 20A breaker, 20 amp branch circuit. (#12awg bare minimum wire size.)

.

erik_squires
16,393 posts
 

Hi OP,

The idea between dirty and clean power has more to do with the power supplies. The extremes are things like LED lights and Ethernet switches.  These tend to have really noisy power supplies which clutter up the AC line.  So even with just 1 power strip I'd try to keep those out of the audio zone. Now a high end SACD player doesn't use these noisy wall warts so I'd prbably be OK with it in the clean zone.

I should also point out that these issues tend to be noticeable after a couple of days.  Try in and out and see which sounds best to you.

But also, I am paranoid about surges so I keep all my audio and video gear on a surge protector.

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