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

@cakyol , well, as I started this thread by typing, I originally did this 25 years ago before I had a PC and the internet, so I am sure that I probably read something in Stereophile about a dedicated circuit (or maybe more than one) for the gear, and with this, as with everything else in my world, I thought that if one is good more was better.

At the time I had a pair of ARC mono blocks, my pre, three pieces of digital separates, and a powered sub. This has changed, and I now am running a two channel Cary amp, a pre, a Maranzt SA10 as my digital source, and the same powered sub.

In this thread I posted I have read both sides of this coin, and I guess by flipping a couple of breakers to ’off’, I have the option of experimenting & trying it both ways. I pretty much finished up in the attic today, and tomorrow I have a couple of things to change around at the panel, and then I will start testing some stuff out.

I appreciate your interset & I thank you for your input.

 

An audible ground loop happens when you have two or more paths to ground that are of different potential (voltage).

@cleeds  , what would cause that?

Ideally the connection of all the power plugs would be in a star ground configuration (analog and digital gear connected to separate isolated power outlets of the power conditioner) . Power strips  is the next best to star ground.

@apogeum , meaning on one circuit?

@invalid wrote:

I don't know where all these ground loops are coming from with multiple dedicated circuits for your audio system, I have six dedicated lines of which I'm using four currently and do not have any ground loop problems. 

 

I agree!

I have four dedicated lines for audio, one for each monoblock amp, one for analog and one for digital. I do not have any ground loop problems or hum. 😎

Mike

See article below:

 

I had a classic ground loop problem. I had one dedicated line to my power conditioner. When I would plug my amp into a nearby duplex receptacle  I would get a hum. The circuit my amp was plugged into had a number of outlets on them… I never fiigured out which. Solutions included replacing all the duplex receptacles  on the non-direct line or just adding another direct line. I added another direct line. Problem gone. There was ever so slightly greater resistance in the original installed  line which serviced many recepticals than the direct line… hence a trickle of electricity. A second direct line solved the problem.