Electrical and Grounding Needs

1. IMO you would probably be better served to not go the sub-panel route but instead install double or dual circuit breakers in place of one. This is easier for the electrician and less costly to you and perhaps cleaner AC as a result.

2. 10 gauge is even better than 12 gauge and you may want to look for some special romex such as 99.95% OFC copper.

3. You should inquire about having a seperate isolated ground for all audio component circuits. This should help quite a bit.

-IMO

Hi Stehno,

I am finishing my entire basement, so the sub-panel is needed:) Do you know what would be involved in getting an electrician to make the audio circuits on their own ground? Would this be a tedious expensive task on the electricians part?

THANKS!

This would be my recommendation as long as you have an electrician coming in to do the work. First get a 220 volt line to run to the subpanel in the audio room (or adjacent room). At the end of the 220 volt line connect a toroidal transformer to step the voltage down to 110v. With the right wiring method this will give you 2 live poles of +/- 55 volts that are out of phase, thus canceling much of the inherent noise on the line (although there probably isn’t much after the isolation transformer). The problem here is finding a transformer large enough for your needs. I used one that was rated at 30 amps at 220 volts (6.5 kVa). That’s pretty high, and it may be difficult to find one at that rating. I’m still looking for some common sources for one that’s rated that high. The subpannel then gave me 4 separate circuits all independently filtered and grounded (one for the projector, one for amps, one for analog, and one for digital) I then use 10 gauge solid copper to the outlets which are all Hubble hospital grade. Hope that helps.