Many questions on many forums asking a similar question I know. However, I was hoping to tap the knowledge of this select group. I have 3 dedicated lines running to their own subpanel for my 2 channel system. I am having some electrical work done and have considered adding 2 more dedicated lines. The reason for doing so, other than opportunity, is that when I ran the first 3 I did not have what I consider expert advice. For example, the 3 lines are on different phases (which will be corrected during this job). I have more "hiss" in my speakers at idle than I think I should given the robust power supplies my components have. Hopefully some of that will be corrected by putting things on the same phase. So here it is... What instructions would you give the electrician running 2 new dedicated lines? 20 amp, type/gauge wire, separate conduits, etc. Thanks so much for your help.
Another dedicated line question
- Thread starter BFlowers
- Start date
We spent a lot of $$ here in the studio on just electrical. The best thing we did was install an Equi=tech balanced wall cabinet. Each dedicated line uses JPS in-wall cable and either JPS or Oyaide R1 wall outlets. The only thing with the JPS cable is that it's so big, I had to have the electrician crimp/solder gold spades to the cable with shrink tubing and screwed the spades to the side of the outlet. All dedicated lines were at least 1 foot apart if running parallel or at 90 degrees if closer. We ran a #4 OFC cable to the grounding rod in the ground.
Thanks to this advice from Jim Weill of Sound Applications:
If I might suggest, your customers might also benefit from taking the AC problem one step closer to the circuit breaker box. Audiophiles might be advised to hire an electrician (and insist on the following) and have them check that the AC lines running to their equipment is on the same leg - otherwise the power transformers will be 180 degrees out of phase and as a result, can increase the noise floor and produce ground loop hum. Another might be for the electrician to measure the power factor on the two legs and select the better of the two. Finally, the electrician can clean the connections and retorque them.
Hi
I have posted quite a bit about the need for clean power in any serious stereo systems. While I would not rate it as important as Room Treatment, its importance ranks high in getting the best out of any system, modest or superlative.
Your house is wired to the commercial grid. There is a line that goes from your house to the pole or something in the street a pole or something else. Your house is connected IN PARALLEL with other house in the neighborhood in most instance, but it is in most cases (unless you generate you own power) connected in parallel with some other houses. In these houses there are sources of noise, electrical noise, electrical disturbances that can be easily seen on an oscilloscope, your house sees these disturbances.
The disturbances are of two basic natures:
Those that affect the Quantity of the power available to your house
Those that affect the Quality of the power available to your house.
On the quantity side, it is relatively well covered in most American neighborhoods. Most American houses or dwelling have a serious amount of power available to them on an (almost) continuous basis. You turn on your AC, an electrical oven, while watching TV, listening to music, all lights on in the house and ironing a shirt with no problem in most American dwellings… Not a thought about that... Yet an electrical oven consumes easily 3 to 5 KW of power, A Water heater the same and a Central AC unit... well... the same!! So in the USA the issue of Quantity is dealt with.
Quality in the USA or elsewhere in not as understood. You all have seen those long electrical lines that characterizes any inhabited areas, long lines that are strewn across the USA or elsewhere... These carry the power from the power plants to the houses through a complicated maze of wires. The same power plants are connected to industrial and commercial facilities. In these facilities there are equipments that produce a lot of electrical disturbances... Some actually send back unsolicited power to the power plants (I know it is an oversimplification but the concept of counter-EMF is actually that ...). A big electric motor running an elevator sends back a lot of electrical noise back to the power lines and more. And these noises can be seen and felt. They affect the quality of what electrical power you get in your house but also affect its quantity as well. IOW these noises can combine in a random fashion to have LESS electricity in your house. But we are talking about quality here and we will remain on topic.
What your equipment expects to see is a clean sine wave at a set (60 HZ in the USA, 50 in many others) from the power line. What they get is something vaguely resembling a sine and while 60 Hz is the fundamental, lot of harmonics and other frequencies non-harmonically related. You get that from the grid, from the line that connects your house to the commercial system. Before you have done a thing with it or to it. You get NOT a sine but a signal on which rides a lot of noise, which the commercial grid captured, including RFi, EMI, etc. Those long lines strewn across the fields are big antennas too and they catch things, lot of things, none of these wanted in the distribution system or your house …
When you have a dedicated line. All you have done is a breaker dedicated to your system and your system only. Whatever noise is present in your system will be seen at the dedicated line as well. All that you get a little more is some power before the breaker trips up available to you and you only. You are not truly isolated from the noise generated inside or outside your house. You are NOT!! Dedicated Lines DO NOT ISOLATE YOU FROM NOISE INSIDE OR OUTSIDE YOUR HOUSE. I had to shout it because there is so much misconception on the subject …It is good to start with dedicated line... You still don’t have clean power to your system and this is a fact …
You must filter the noise coming OUT and that is what some system can do. The ISOTech is one of them and there are others. There are ways to filter noise in an electrical distribution system. One of them is an isolation transformer coupled with 4 wire wiring. A transformer, the bigger the better is a good filter against High Frequency; the bigger they are the better they filter high frequencies. There is also a bit of (for the lack of a better word) Electrical Inertia in a big transformer they tend to store energy and thus can provide a small amount of electrical stabilization, same as what you observe in big capacitor but not as much storage … Another is Balanced electrical system which work very well to remove the noise, Equates being a prime example. These are good at removing noise from the electricity provided by the commercial grid.
The absolute best is a double conversion UPS one that First transform the AC to DC, charges a battery with the DC uses the power room the battery to generate its OWN electricity with these of a device called a DC to AC inverter. They have the potential to provide the best AC to any system. I believe there are very few of these devices in the audiophile world... The only one I know of is the PS Audio power plant. In the non-audiophile world there are plenty of solutions... The best known brand in that realm is APC… They make a lot of double conversion UPS and the power coming out of some of them can power ANY size Audiophile system with ease from 2 Watts to 150 KW they have these.. But that will be for another post if there is any interest in the subject. This on is already tool long.. And let's not forget proper grounding ...
Frantz
P.S. I had to learn the issue of power the hard way. When my expensive ISP infrastructure was going down for no apparent reasons. I applied the same principles in my system and have liked the results…
I have posted quite a bit about the need for clean power in any serious stereo systems. While I would not rate it as important as Room Treatment, its importance ranks high in getting the best out of any system, modest or superlative.
Your house is wired to the commercial grid. There is a line that goes from your house to the pole or something in the street a pole or something else. Your house is connected IN PARALLEL with other house in the neighborhood in most instance, but it is in most cases (unless you generate you own power) connected in parallel with some other houses. In these houses there are sources of noise, electrical noise, electrical disturbances that can be easily seen on an oscilloscope, your house sees these disturbances.
The disturbances are of two basic natures:
Those that affect the Quantity of the power available to your house
Those that affect the Quality of the power available to your house.
On the quantity side, it is relatively well covered in most American neighborhoods. Most American houses or dwelling have a serious amount of power available to them on an (almost) continuous basis. You turn on your AC, an electrical oven, while watching TV, listening to music, all lights on in the house and ironing a shirt with no problem in most American dwellings… Not a thought about that... Yet an electrical oven consumes easily 3 to 5 KW of power, A Water heater the same and a Central AC unit... well... the same!! So in the USA the issue of Quantity is dealt with.
Quality in the USA or elsewhere in not as understood. You all have seen those long electrical lines that characterizes any inhabited areas, long lines that are strewn across the USA or elsewhere... These carry the power from the power plants to the houses through a complicated maze of wires. The same power plants are connected to industrial and commercial facilities. In these facilities there are equipments that produce a lot of electrical disturbances... Some actually send back unsolicited power to the power plants (I know it is an oversimplification but the concept of counter-EMF is actually that ...). A big electric motor running an elevator sends back a lot of electrical noise back to the power lines and more. And these noises can be seen and felt. They affect the quality of what electrical power you get in your house but also affect its quantity as well. IOW these noises can combine in a random fashion to have LESS electricity in your house. But we are talking about quality here and we will remain on topic.
What your equipment expects to see is a clean sine wave at a set (60 HZ in the USA, 50 in many others) from the power line. What they get is something vaguely resembling a sine and while 60 Hz is the fundamental, lot of harmonics and other frequencies non-harmonically related. You get that from the grid, from the line that connects your house to the commercial system. Before you have done a thing with it or to it. You get NOT a sine but a signal on which rides a lot of noise, which the commercial grid captured, including RFi, EMI, etc. Those long lines strewn across the fields are big antennas too and they catch things, lot of things, none of these wanted in the distribution system or your house …
When you have a dedicated line. All you have done is a breaker dedicated to your system and your system only. Whatever noise is present in your system will be seen at the dedicated line as well. All that you get a little more is some power before the breaker trips up available to you and you only. You are not truly isolated from the noise generated inside or outside your house. You are NOT!! Dedicated Lines DO NOT ISOLATE YOU FROM NOISE INSIDE OR OUTSIDE YOUR HOUSE. I had to shout it because there is so much misconception on the subject …It is good to start with dedicated line... You still don’t have clean power to your system and this is a fact …
You must filter the noise coming OUT and that is what some system can do. The ISOTech is one of them and there are others. There are ways to filter noise in an electrical distribution system. One of them is an isolation transformer coupled with 4 wire wiring. A transformer, the bigger the better is a good filter against High Frequency; the bigger they are the better they filter high frequencies. There is also a bit of (for the lack of a better word) Electrical Inertia in a big transformer they tend to store energy and thus can provide a small amount of electrical stabilization, same as what you observe in big capacitor but not as much storage … Another is Balanced electrical system which work very well to remove the noise, Equates being a prime example. These are good at removing noise from the electricity provided by the commercial grid.
The absolute best is a double conversion UPS one that First transform the AC to DC, charges a battery with the DC uses the power room the battery to generate its OWN electricity with these of a device called a DC to AC inverter. They have the potential to provide the best AC to any system. I believe there are very few of these devices in the audiophile world... The only one I know of is the PS Audio power plant. In the non-audiophile world there are plenty of solutions... The best known brand in that realm is APC… They make a lot of double conversion UPS and the power coming out of some of them can power ANY size Audiophile system with ease from 2 Watts to 150 KW they have these.. But that will be for another post if there is any interest in the subject. This on is already tool long.. And let's not forget proper grounding ...
Frantz
P.S. I had to learn the issue of power the hard way. When my expensive ISP infrastructure was going down for no apparent reasons. I applied the same principles in my system and have liked the results…
But the problem with isolation transformers is their inductance; they all affect the sound to some extent. One of the big problems with ITs is they squash dynamics, soundspace, and upper octave extension-esp. with large wattage amps. In yesteryear, the cure was worse than the disease as when I played with the Tice Power Block/Titan. Nowadays though, designers have changed their power supply design in an attempt to address the same issues--and the cure is now worse than the disease.
Frantz,
I have seen you write about the double conversion UPS in the past. It seems fairly straightforward. Why don't more people use this type of solution?
I have seen you write about the double conversion UPS in the past. It seems fairly straightforward. Why don't more people use this type of solution?
Myles
The issues you mentioned are very easy to address. An amplifier draws power from the line .. If you restrict the flow of power then the amplifier cannot deliver its full power. That is what an improperly sized isolation transformer does, not because of its inductance, no , not at all simply because it restricts power. There are isolation transformers of all sizes. If your amps draw at full power let's say 3 KW then you must use an isolation transformer larger than 3 KW much larger since you will likely have other equipment plugged on it.
A properly sized isolation transformer CANNOT do anything bad to the sound... What do you think provides power to your house ? A transformer of serious inductance, the larger the amplifier the larger its power transformer. You are ALWAYS connected to a transformer... the one in the street, in your sytem, etc. AN isolation transformer when properly sized is ABSOLUTELY transparent ... There is NO way you will have squashed dynamic or any problem with anything .. It is a matter of arithmetic. You know how much power your equipment will use at max, not idling, you get the appropriate ( oversized) IT...
For my money I prefer oversized Double Conversion UPS. I was using a Telecom grade Lorain Inverter which provided easily 15 KW of pristine, pure, stable 3% regulation at full load, less than 1% THD to my system which never drew more than 1.5 KW …
Frantz
The issues you mentioned are very easy to address. An amplifier draws power from the line .. If you restrict the flow of power then the amplifier cannot deliver its full power. That is what an improperly sized isolation transformer does, not because of its inductance, no , not at all simply because it restricts power. There are isolation transformers of all sizes. If your amps draw at full power let's say 3 KW then you must use an isolation transformer larger than 3 KW much larger since you will likely have other equipment plugged on it.
A properly sized isolation transformer CANNOT do anything bad to the sound... What do you think provides power to your house ? A transformer of serious inductance, the larger the amplifier the larger its power transformer. You are ALWAYS connected to a transformer... the one in the street, in your sytem, etc. AN isolation transformer when properly sized is ABSOLUTELY transparent ... There is NO way you will have squashed dynamic or any problem with anything .. It is a matter of arithmetic. You know how much power your equipment will use at max, not idling, you get the appropriate ( oversized) IT...
For my money I prefer oversized Double Conversion UPS. I was using a Telecom grade Lorain Inverter which provided easily 15 KW of pristine, pure, stable 3% regulation at full load, less than 1% THD to my system which never drew more than 1.5 KW …
Frantz
Frantz-
I'm aware of the "size" issue with ITs and power amps and still haven't heard one that doesn't leave its footprint on the sound.
But the issues was solely with amps. I used the IT solely on the front-end too (and any other type of PLC) and there was an effect on the sonics, there. Thus I'd conclude there's something else going on here other than choking off current flow? (I think when I had them, the Power Block titan combo was rated around 3 KW.)
Honestly, I haven't heard any type of PLC yet in my system (and who knows, certainly there are many I haven't heard), IT, regenerator, filter, etc, etc. that doesn't unacceptably color the sound.
So I'd suggest that everyone listen with all PLC in their own system first and have the right to return!
Last edited:
Myles
3 KW could be borderline in an Audio system. Let's take for an example a pair of 300 Watts monoblock Class A SS.. Considering the theoretical 25% efficiency of Class A designs, these amps will consume 2400 Watts and let's suppose the speaker impedance is stable because if it varies, for example under 4 Ohms in the bass there will be more demand on the amps thus the AC power. Suddenly your amps are asking for 4800 Watts and the Titan is choking .. It will be approaching its core saturation and it could be that it starts restricting the flow of current .. This will , I this cannot be the case with a 10 KW IT and they exist .. I am not saying they are the best solution but an appropriately sized IT will not choke an amp, CANNOT choke an amp.
I have professed that I don't care much about Audiophile PLC. Most audiophile PLC are IMHO underachievers, regardless of cost or claims of superiority. There are a few exceptions. The PS Audio being one of them , yet it is a joke compared to double conversion UPS such as those made by APC and others, which cost much less...I have had working experiences with Power Quality equipment and have had to monitor AC Lines as a matter of business survival. AC Lines are dirty, very much so. The effect of this "dirt" is audible.
There seems to be a tendency to orthodoxy in the Audiophile community for example" don't use a PLC with a powerful amplifier it will choke it.. Not true if the PLC is of sufficient size; for example a 500 Watts PLC will not choke a 8 Watts Class A Triode amp .. CANNOT unless the true rating of this PLC is wrong... It will however choke on a 100 Watts Class A SS amp and it s quite possible that you will hear it as a lack of dynamic bloom, etc ... So the size of the IT is the thing not IT in themselves. When you put your amp on its own glorious "dedicated" AC Line all it has "dedicated" is a breaker. It continues to share the same dirty power as the rest of the house and these days with so many switched power supplies in everything from Phone charger to PCs the AC lines in your house are even dirtier... So the "dedicated" line to repeat myself is a good start. You should not stop there..
Frantz
3 KW could be borderline in an Audio system. Let's take for an example a pair of 300 Watts monoblock Class A SS.. Considering the theoretical 25% efficiency of Class A designs, these amps will consume 2400 Watts and let's suppose the speaker impedance is stable because if it varies, for example under 4 Ohms in the bass there will be more demand on the amps thus the AC power. Suddenly your amps are asking for 4800 Watts and the Titan is choking .. It will be approaching its core saturation and it could be that it starts restricting the flow of current .. This will , I this cannot be the case with a 10 KW IT and they exist .. I am not saying they are the best solution but an appropriately sized IT will not choke an amp, CANNOT choke an amp.
I have professed that I don't care much about Audiophile PLC. Most audiophile PLC are IMHO underachievers, regardless of cost or claims of superiority. There are a few exceptions. The PS Audio being one of them , yet it is a joke compared to double conversion UPS such as those made by APC and others, which cost much less...I have had working experiences with Power Quality equipment and have had to monitor AC Lines as a matter of business survival. AC Lines are dirty, very much so. The effect of this "dirt" is audible.
There seems to be a tendency to orthodoxy in the Audiophile community for example" don't use a PLC with a powerful amplifier it will choke it.. Not true if the PLC is of sufficient size; for example a 500 Watts PLC will not choke a 8 Watts Class A Triode amp .. CANNOT unless the true rating of this PLC is wrong... It will however choke on a 100 Watts Class A SS amp and it s quite possible that you will hear it as a lack of dynamic bloom, etc ... So the size of the IT is the thing not IT in themselves. When you put your amp on its own glorious "dedicated" AC Line all it has "dedicated" is a breaker. It continues to share the same dirty power as the rest of the house and these days with so many switched power supplies in everything from Phone charger to PCs the AC lines in your house are even dirtier... So the "dedicated" line to repeat myself is a good start. You should not stop there..
Frantz
Frantz-totally agree with what you've said about amps! No argument as all from me. In fact, used to talk about needing say 4X rating for an amplifier. At the time the Tice came out, people tried it with the big Krells and it didn't work. I know George tried some mods with caps across the IT but to mixed success.
Guess all I'm saying is that I don't think ITs are necessarily sonically neutral. In fact, after not using the Tice gear for a couple of years, went back and listened to them again and couldn't believe how colored they were. The answer: today's gear is just far more neutral and uncolored and reveals a lot more than it did say 10-15 years ago.
Guess all I'm saying is that I don't think ITs are necessarily sonically neutral. In fact, after not using the Tice gear for a couple of years, went back and listened to them again and couldn't believe how colored they were. The answer: today's gear is just far more neutral and uncolored and reveals a lot more than it did say 10-15 years ago.
I don't have a good idea. I do however believe that there are some dogmas in the Audiophile community that precludes he use of anything that is NOT labelled "Audiophile". It remains that most PLC are inadequate and choke on a good size amps despite their cost, thus the point about these restricting dynamics and the likes.... It is also true that a double conversion UPS installation is a professional electrician job. Few residential electric contractors install these. A commercial electric contractor with Computer room experience is your best bet..
By the way that is what the PS audio Power Plant is, a double conversion system it can deliver 1500 watts of clean power MAX, that is , still borderline for a system with 300 Watts per channel amplifiers.. The price is reasonable though at 1699 or so .. I would however go with a 5 KVA double conversion APC Smartups at three times the power, 1.5 the cost .. or bigger.
Frantz
Last edited:
Similar threads
Members online
- itay123
- markramler
- McDee275
- DW101
- Kingsrule
- tsaett
- wl215
- wbfhet
- Artnet
- bonzo75
- rt662
- Alex G
- hopkins
- Lojay
- wbass
- the sound of Tao
- MarkusBarkus
- andromedaaudio
- schlager
- Xampai
- PurePoor
- Christiaan Punter
- SlapEcho
- MusicFellow
- kasin
- simorag
- apachedna
- Charlie B.
- pjwd
- TLi
- Hiroshi
- kabrio69
- ChasFreeland
- ashandger
- joeling
- RCanelas
- Sarge
- TWJeff
- Ampman
- rdg
- alex3
- Johan K
- iaxel
- Rexp
- Juiced
 | Steve Williams Site Founder | Site Owner | Administrator |  | Ron Resnick Site Co-Owner | Administrator |  | Julian (The Fixer) Website Build | Marketing Managersing |