New Electrical Circuit


I have an older house with open circuits so I am wiring a new dedicated circuit for my audio gear.  Before I do so, would it be very advantageous to bump up the quality of the outlet and / or wiring to improve quality or is this overkill? Has anyone done this in the past and what would you recommend? 

puffbojie

would putting a 4 -6 outlet plug be better or even needed? I’m not sure if the high end outlets typically go up to 4 or 6.

One standard receptacle has two outlets. If you need 4 or 6 outlets you’ll be using, respectively, 2 or 3 receptacles. You’re using the same receptacle "unit" regardless of how many outlets.

Multiple receptacles in one box should be bussed rather than daisy-chained. Receptacles should always be wired at their screw terminals, NEVER backstabbed (although for some unfathomable reason backstabbing is still Code-compliant in the US).

Enjoy!

 

if you want the best outlets to use get Furutech, they're not cheap but boy do they make a difference.

I ran a dedicated 20 amp circuit.  Leviton 8300-R 20-Amp hospital grade outlet.  ZeroSurge 8R20W power conditioner.  Preffair Audiophile HiFi shielded power cord, 10AWG, rhodium plated.  Made no difference whatsoever.  Skin effect, jitter, and drift do not make an audible difference.  Circuits that handle audio are all powered by DC, so the correctness of the AC sine wave makes little difference unless it is massively out of whack.

You did not say what country you are in!  Most of the answers assume USA, but in much of the rest of the world we use higher voltages, so much less current is drawn for the same power.  My supply is nominally 240-V RMS, though it is usually 250.  Outlets are rated for 10-Amps, with 15-Amps for bigger loads like running a caravan!

Someone mentioned phases, in the context of stages of rewiring.  In Alternating Current (AC) mains electrical supply, there are usually three phases using three wires running down a street.  Each phase is an AC sinewave rotated 120-degrees from its neighbours.  Often, each house just gets one phase.  When the lights are out in every third house, you know one phase has gone down!  

For high power devices (like my sauna and big bench sander) we have the option of using all three phases (3 wires plus earth) for three times the power.  The average power delivered through three phases is very smooth - none of the stops and starts and reverses you get with single phase AC. 

Oddly, I have never come across audiophile power supplies designed for 3-phase.

Another difference is that we use 50-Hz, not 60!

@skeptikal 

I am with you with respect to managing noise in the mains supply.

But I think most of the electrical noise affecting our components is generated by other components in our own audio chains.  In particular, I have a subwoofer with a class D internal amplifier which injects so much noise into the power cable feeding it, that it completely destroys digital TV reception.  The fix was ludicrously cheap - just a couple of ferrites round the power cable.  This is an extreme example, but is completely reproducible.