Dedicated power lines for audio?

Bob: is the THHN a single copper wire? please confirm.... I also used the trick of the drill (better if reversible) for temporary long speaker cable runs for surrounds (ca 40 ft per channel) and it's much better that them running parallel without the twist

Sol: Yes to the single solid copper wire question. Dunno about directionality: now I need to try it both ways (per Garfish, see above). I guess you just look at the printing on the wire's insulation & ensure that all 3 conductors are aligned identically. Re: the twisted conductors - this relates to something about the magnetic flux fields cancelling each other. You'll find that some upgrade AC cords are made this way too. Of course you must run this twisted wire bundle in a conduit (or in 3/8" Greenfield if code permits - much easier to work with). I disagree re: not using any surge protection & filtering, at least from my own experience. I have a big Joslyn gas-discharge primary arrestor, across the whole house' primary, in the basement. Then a G.E. MOV (metal oxide varistor) in parallel across my Wattgate 381 outlet (mounted in a box) upstairs. MOV's are not supposed to hurt anything; Chang Lightspeed uses them internally for transient protection. Hope they're right? I also use two Chang Lightspeeds (a 3200 and a 9900 Amp) in addition to some pretty seriously expensive upgrade AC cords. The dedicated line sounded even better with the Chang's than it did standalone, but that might relate to the directionality issue (which I've not yet addressed) not being optimum? Maybe when summer's over I'll try that. Right now I'm gleefully satisfied with the results so far. Dramatic improvements over the house wiring! I noticed they also make plastic-based fuses; have not tried one, but I should, just for grins. I polished the fuse clean & bright, then applied Kontact. Same with the #10 solid conductors' ends, just like I do with all my AC & signal cables. If you use anything larger than #10 it becomes a bear to work with. #10 is stiff too, but at least it's still workable. Now what about isolated grounding? Has anyone done this, & was it worthwhile? Keep this thread going guys - this is realy good stuff, and we're all learning a lot, myself included.

Excellent thread! I don't pretend to know much, however. You may want to look at a series of introductory articles on this by Jonathan Scull, available on the STEREOPHILE website under ARCHIVES. Search for FINE TUNES no's 9 thru' 12. If you collect the 'zine, these are in Feb. thru' April 1999.

I recently added a dedicated line along with isolated grounding. A very positive improvement in the sound quality of my system. Highly recommended. I used quite a bit of the information from several of the Audiogon threads. Thanks. The one thing I didn’t gain any improvement on was the directionality of the main wiring (as Redkiwi says). I wasn’t able to here an audible difference by changing the direction of the wire. I followed the same process and ran the wiring on the outside of the house. I actually tested is four different ways (switching both the hot and neutral wires). I’m curious if others are finding that directionality makes a difference? I used stranded 8awg from the main breaker and a combination of 8awg and 4awg for the isolated grounding (yes it is probably overkill but what the hell). The main wire was pretty stiff and somewhat hard to work with and barely fit into the wattagate screw down terminals. The ground wire was Esoteric Audio car power wire. It consists of many strands of copper and is very flexible. I fed the main line in series to two wattagate receptacles (about 6' apart). From the wattagates I used short runs of 8awg to a copper grounding block and then approximately 10’ of the 4awg to the outside grounding rods. I used two 8 footers about 18” apart. The best comment that I get is when my wife asks me if she can water my rod when she’s done with the garden.

i'd like to thank everyone for all of the helpful info. i just finished installing 4 new outlets on 4 circuits from a sub panel run off of the main box. i went from a 40amp breaker, ran 3 conductor 8 gauge to the subpanel, drove a separate 5/8" grounding rod from the subpanel, used separate neutral and ground wires for each circuit and used hubbell hospital grade outlets from hcm audio(24.75ea). wow!!! what a difference. increased detail AND smooth involving presentation not to mention a bigger and better image! i couldn't hardly listen to my system during the daytime before.....too hard sounding. i have been listening all day while two window ac units and a dehumidifier and my computer are all on and it sounds terrific! the only thing i can add to the discussion is i am going to try a quieting transformer. my local spectral dealer has one hooked up with his 2c3d system. i will report back when i get it hooked up. i am hearing info for the first time on many cd's!