type of house wire

10/3 solid copper, standard romex(BSEE U of I, fwiw). To Lacee's question, the 10 solid copper is a bit lower in resistance than 10 stranded and will give you a bit more of a solid buss back to your fuse or breaker panel, not that this is a big deal for the circuits I expect we are dealing with. It is kind of like your garden hose (pc)is fairly small diameter but that is ok because it is fairly short and pressure at the inlet side is good, if your garden hose ran all the way back to the city water tower then you would have a pressure (solid voltage and ground) problem.

One thing I always wondered, what if you were to forgo outlets and power cords entirely, and just run the cable out a hole in your wall, into your component, and splice directly to transformer/ fuse/ whatever is next in line in your gear? There would be some issues with electrical codes, perhaps, but industrial equipment is hardwired sometimes. You would probably have to convuince your code isnpector that the stereo was a permanent part of the house. Or sneak it in after the inspection. Has anyone tried this?

I strongly recommend Wattgate receptacles. Big improvement over anything else. A no-brainer.

I used 12/2 BX Lite which is a twisted trio in an aluminum jacket(shielding)with a drain wire. I had mine cryo treated by http://www.cryoplus.com, which is optional. There are some silver contact enhancers that are great on breaker contacts as well as wires on otlets and power cord plugs. It will be great whatever you decide. Enjoy!

I am in the process of pulling wire now for a 20amp dedicated. I would say 10/3 is a little bit overkill and you might be spending too much $$ on it for long runs especially-although long runs is where 10 guage starts to gain advantage over lesser guages (less volt drop). But where you have the advantage of pulling the wire before wallboard go for it I guess. I can see the stranded argument someone made earlier as being a little more logical, but 10 guage can get expensive, with probably little to no audible results. Alot of this very much depends on the components you are running though.

Correct me if I am wrong here, but it is less about the wire guage, than the fact you are dedicated a circuit to the component correct? Not sharing a ground etc...I would suppose if your power cord weren't the same as the rest of the chain it wouldn't matter much right? I could be wrong of course.

Where I live code is only 12/2 (or more) with 20amp. Most really powerful amps only call for a dedicated 20, not a 30, that is usually for dryers, dishwasher etc. This equipment does not suck that amount of juice. Not to mention, why put a more powerful breaker on something that can't trip it right? Is that a potential firehazard? I am no electrical expert, but I just stick with the requirements, because for me dedicating a circuit in the first place to a stereo is overkill, and other than eliminating shared ground don't think it is totally necessary in all applications.