Dedicated line doubt

[Cleese74]

Hello!
I need your advice, community.

I am building my audio room and I want to put a dedicated line. From the electrical panel box to the room I need at least 20 meters of cable.
My intention was to install three lines, one for amplification, another for sources (DAC, TT, Streamer) and another for preamps (Phono and Pre).
I don't have an unlimited budget, so I have to choose between:

A.- 3 Lines with a medium price cable

B.- 1 line with a more expensive cable

C.- With so many meters, it would be better to use a "normal" cable and invest in a good power strip or filter for the studio.

Thank you !

 

[brad225]

Hi Cleese

What do you consider medium and expensive cables, as far as the cable not the cost.

 

[MarkusBarkus]

...one line, 6 gauge copper cable. Good outlet. And a good power strip or "conditioner" would be nice. That said, is this 120v or 220v? Good Luck!

 

[Republicoftexas69]

Key here is isolation for EMI, RFI and parasitic noise transferred from other appliances in your home. Isolation is 90 % of the battle and I would use whatever is code for your area. Your electrician will know this. It is what I did though I did have my electrician us additional EMI RFI insulation on the wire and suspend off the slab.

 

[Cellcbern]

Hello!
I need your advice, community.

I am building my audio room and I want to put a dedicated line. From the electrical panel box to the room I need at least 20 meters of cable.
My intention was to install three lines, one for amplification, another for sources (DAC, TT, Streamer) and another for preamps (Phono and Pre).
I don't have an unlimited budget, so I have to choose between:

A.- 3 Lines with a medium price cable

B.- 1 line with a more expensive cable

C.- With so many meters, it would be better to use a "normal" cable and invest in a good power strip or filter for the studio.

Thank you !

There is no need for/advantage to having more than one dedicated line. Unless you are using megawatt power amps it would be highly unusual to even approach the current draw capacity of a single dedicated line. A 30A (6awg) line from the house breaker panel to a dedicated audio room breaker box and a 20A (10awg) line (e.g., JPS Labs or Audience in wall wiring) from there to a top tier wall duplex (Furutech, Oyaide, ETI Legato) should be all you need. Note that a dedicated line does not obviate the need for a good power conditioner/distributor and specialized noise filters for digital/high frequency noise in the air and generated by audio components.

 

[John T]

Hello!
I need your advice, community.

I am building my audio room and I want to put a dedicated line. From the electrical panel box to the room I need at least 20 meters of cable.
My intention was to install three lines, one for amplification, another for sources (DAC, TT, Streamer) and another for preamps (Phono and Pre).
I don't have an unlimited budget, so I have to choose between:

A.- 3 Lines with a medium price cable

B.- 1 line with a more expensive cable

C.- With so many meters, it would be better to use a "normal" cable and invest in a good power strip or filter for the studio.

Thank you !

It depends how "dedicated" you want to be. Pun intended. This is a system dependent application IMO. My Mephisto Dual Class A, 2 power cables. I run each side from 2 separate circuits. The Rel 6 pack array has two circuits, one per side. The Pandora Pre also dual (2 power cables)is on one circuit. The point I am attempting to make is it depends on your gear and set-up. I also have good AC coming in along with a good grounding system...

 

[Cellcbern]

It depends how "dedicated" you want to be. Pun intended. This is a system dependent application IMO. My Mephisto Dual Class A, 2 power cables. I run each side from 2 separate circuits. The Rel 6 pack array has two circuits, one per side. The Pandora Pre also dual (2 power cables)is on one circuit. The point I am attempting to make is it depends on your gear and set-up. I also have good AC coming in along with a good grounding system...

Understanding what a dedicated line does, unless your peak current draw exceeds the capacity of a single dedicated line, what is the advantage in having more than one? A dedicated line isolates your audio system AC from household appliance generated noise (thats all it does). What if any additional isolation do additional dedicated lines provide?

 

[John T]

Understanding what a dedicated line does, unless your peak current draw exceeds the capacity of a single dedicated line, what is the advantage in having more than one? A dedicated line isolates your audio system AC from household appliance generated noise (thats all it does). What if any additional isolation do additional dedicated lines provide?

I understand the electrical concept of amperage/ voltage. For the subwoofers geographically I needed 2 circuits because of spacing. Previously I had EMM LABS MTRX1's, large powerful monoblocks. I wanted them on two separate circuits. I keep my digital on there own circuits. Is it overkill? Most likely yes, but what isn't in this passion? I was able to do the installation myself so that saved a bunch of money. I like the way my system sounds, that's all that counts...

 

[Cellcbern]

I understand the electrical concept of amperage/ voltage. For the subwoofers geographically I needed 2 circuits because of spacing. Previously I had EMM LABS MTRX1's, large powerful monoblocks. I wanted them on two separate circuits. I keep my digital on there own circuits. Is it overkill? Most likely yes, but what isn't in this passion? I was able to do the installation myself so that saved a bunch of money. I like the way my system sounds, that's all that counts...

All of that is fine and you are right - it is how your system sounds that counts. But it remains the case that other than current limitations there is no technical reason for/advantge to having more than one dedicated line, particularly for a poster with budget limitations like the one who started this thread. Spacing issues can also be addressed with power distribution/cables. The other issue with cost implications is that if you have multiple lines/wall duplexes you need power conditioning/noise filtration for all of them.

 

[Cleese74]

...one line, 6 gauge copper cable. Good outlet. And a good power strip or "conditioner" would be nice. That said, is this 120v or 220v? Good Luck!

Thanks! 220, Eu

 

[Hilroy48]

Hello!
I need your advice, community.

I am building my audio room and I want to put a dedicated line. From the electrical panel box to the room I need at least 20 meters of cable.
My intention was to install three lines, one for amplification, another for sources (DAC, TT, Streamer) and another for preamps (Phono and Pre).
I don't have an unlimited budget, so I have to choose between:

A.- 3 Lines with a medium price cable

B.- 1 line with a more expensive cable

C.- With so many meters, it would be better to use a "normal" cable and invest in a good power strip or filter for the studio.

Thank you !

I have a 30 foot run in my house from the outlet to the breaker box. Yours will be 65 feet. not a big deal, be little to no voltage drop in that distance. I installed my self, a 20 amp square D- QO breaker, #12 NMD90 wire, and a Cardas 4181 receptacle. From the plug, I ran a WireWorld Silver Electra 7 power cable to feed my Saturn Audio 103C power conditioner. The result was amazing.


So to answer your question, Yes Install one plug, and spend money on a good power conditioner and good power cables for each piece of equipment.It will all make a difference in the end.

 

[jadedavid]

one avenue of thought on multiple electrical runs is to consider them like bi-wiring a speaker.
The two bi-wire speaker runs start at the same place (amplifier) and go to their separate terminations (I.E. woofer-tweeter) allowing each to do their job optimally without interfering with each other.
And such is the same with multiple electrical runs.

 

[AMR / iFi audio]

one avenue of thought on multiple electrical runs is to consider them like bi-wiring a speaker.
The two bi-wire speaker runs start at the same place (amplifier) and go to their separate terminations (I.E. woofer-tweeter) allowing each to do their job optimally without interfering with each other.
And such is the same with multiple electrical runs.

I'd like to add to that: if I had the option to get multiple lines, great. But. If that meant compromising the quality over one line (eg. budget constraints) I would go with one line.

 

[Cleese74]

Thank you all, guys!

I will go with one line

 

[adyc]

I would go for multiple lines if you are building a room from scratch. It is much harder to have more dedicated lines once you finished building your room. You can put one expensive wire in one dedicated outlet and normal wire in other outlets. When you have more budget, you can replace the normal wire if you feel necessary.