Dedicated lines - 1) use isolated grounds or not? 2) subpanel wiring

[Folsom]

I've reported you, and hope that this message I'm writing now and yours will be deleted.

*I've never tried to sell a power conditioner to anyone on the forum. But I've offered free advise to many, and even sent two out on my dime for people to try as per requests about them. The note about construction is your opinion because no one has ever agreed considering how extremely robust and high quality any of them I've made happen to be.

*BTW I did offer something to Kevin (Speedskater) once. Free PCB boards.

*You're upset because in a previous thread I did think you were trolling. That doesn't mean I disliked you or anything like that. After that you became aggressive and insulting in all forms of communication; in which I was offering free guidance.

*I did change my name because I wasn't settled on what I wanted to have as a company name. I'll refrain from that last comment because I've had arguments with people that were wrong and right; we're all learning all the time.

*Neither of these posts have to do with the topic.

 

[Speedskater]

I don't think that 'special inductors' are permitted anywhere in the Safety Ground/Protective Earth system.
Isolated grounds are used to keep noise, interference, lost Neutral and Ground currents from other circuits out of your hi-fi's AC power circuit. If anything an I.G. system might make the ground loop current worse. (be increasing the SG/PE wire length [and resistance thus voltage drop] greater from hi-fi component to component)

 

[Folsom]

I don't think that 'special inductors' are permitted anywhere in the Safety Ground/Protective Earth system.
Isolated grounds are used to keep noise, interference, lost Neutral and Ground currents from other circuits out of your hi-fi's AC power circuit. If anything an I.G. system might make the ground loop current worse. (be increasing the SG/PE wire length (and resistance) greater from hi-fi component to component.

I'm not sure where the problem with these is at.

And I agree that IG can make a group loop worse, if you have one. Sometimes they're inherent so IG will add noise, but a DENO will prevent it. And again it's literally impossible to not use IG and have one work, as per your suggestion earlier Kevin. Perhaps you actually meant something else.

 

[Speedskater]

Ground Loops

Multiple grounds are not the problem in ground loops. What is the problem is loop area. You can have a 7.1 sound system with 7 (or 8) RCA cables with no problems. If all 7 cables start at the same point, follow the same path and finish at the same location, the loop area is almost zero. So there are no different voltage drops in the ground circuit.

 

[Speedskater]

I'm not sure where the problem with these is at.
And I agree that IG can make a group loop worse, if you have one. Sometimes they're inherent so IG will add noise, but a DENO will prevent it. And again it's literally impossible to not use IG and have one work, as per your suggestion earlier Kevin. Perhaps you actually meant something else.

No UL approval on those 'special inductors'.

I must use an isolated ground socket in a powerstrip or such that has a metal enclosure. If I don't, then the loop forms through the enclosure.
How do you wire a IG on a power strip?(use a 4 conductor cord?)How does this not make the loop larger?

 

[Folsom]

No UL approval on those 'special inductors'.

They'd be CE approved first; if they needed to be. They go in appliances that would seek CE/UL certification, and are not stand alone. AC receptacles get UL/CE approval because they're often stand alone devices in a box in a wall or such. I can't find any UL certified parts I see in anything out there aside from stand alone.

 

[YashN]

hope that this message I'm writing now and yours will be deleted.

*I've never tried to sell a power conditioner to anyone on the forum.

*You're upset because in a previous thread I did think you were trolling.

That doesn't mean I disliked you or anything like that. After that you became aggressive and insulting in all forms of communication

On the contrary, people should know how you are: PM and try to 'work something together', then ask more questions in PM - I have everything in my inbox - then you start insulting people in threads, saying they are trolls.

I see you peddle your faulty device in another thread as well.

As for relevance, you posted an image of your box in the Entreq thread where it had no reason to be.

 

[Steve Williams]

On the contrary, people should know how you are: PM and try to 'work something together', then ask more questions in PM - I have everything in my inbox - then you start insulting people in threads, saying they are trolls.

I see you peddle your faulty device in another thread as well.

As for relevance, you posted an image of your box in the Entreq thread where it had no reason to be.

Hi guys

Let's try to keep the personal issues out. Thank yiu.
.

 

[lem321]

My electrician says local code in San Francisco requires an additional ground rod be placed and connected to the existing ground rod. Also required is use of AFCI breakers on the three new dedicated lines with the new subpanel. Does anyone know what affect, if any, AFCI breakers might have on sound quality or power delivery? Thanks in advance for your input.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

My electrician says local code in San Francisco requires an additional ground rod be placed and connected to the existing ground rod. Also required is use of AFCI breakers on the three new dedicated lines with the new subpanel. Does anyone know what affect, if any, AFCI breakers might have on sound quality or power delivery? Thanks in advance for your input.

GFI breakers......

noise, noise, noise.

I had them removed from my Equi=tech 10WQ wall panel. it came standard with one per circuit. the commercial electrician said that since the room had no water source, and no children playing, and was a dedicated 'studio'....that he was comfortable eliminating them. the clincher was that I had a whole separate panel for my 'dirty' power in the barn with a GFI on every curcuit.

 

[Folsom]

GFI breakers......

noise, noise, noise.

I had them removed from my Equi=tech 10WQ wall panel. it came standard with one per circuit. the commercial electrician said that since the room had no water source, and no children playing, and was a dedicated 'studio'....that he was comfortable eliminating them. the clincher was that I had a whole separate panel for my 'dirty' power in the barn with a GFI on every curcuit.

Funny how they're a "norm" now. And they even place them when there's a GFCI socket that they're providing power to! I swapped out my GFCI breaker for a regular one for my room as well. If anyone has a story about a GFCI tripping when it should, I'd love to hear it. Thus far I've only experiencing them going bad and tripping when they should not.

 

[lem321]

Thanks guys for that information!

 

[SCAudiophile]

My electrician says local code in San Francisco requires an additional ground rod be placed and connected to the existing ground rod. Also required is use of AFCI breakers on the three new dedicated lines with the new subpanel. Does anyone know what affect, if any, AFCI breakers might have on sound quality or power delivery? Thanks in advance for your input.

I've had excellent results in the last year moving to a dual-ground rod setup on advice of another audiophile whose father and he are both experienced electricians and audio lovers;

- new electric meter box and meter-head unit with fresh contacts, screws and all parts....
- use 2 10-foot solid copper ground rods hammered into the earth 8 feet apart at a minimum
- solid copper #4 wire (continuous segment, OFC at a minimum) to join each rod to the other and then immediately to the grounding point off the electric meter for the whole house
- use same gauge solid copper wire coming from the central ground attach point (off the meter) to the main house panel
- buy a custom-made "CADWELD" kit to permanently fuse the ground wire to both copper grounding rods...avoids the typical use of "clamps" to attach grounding wire to rods; clamps
loosen and corrode over time...

The resultant improvement moving from one ground rod to two and using CADWELD bonding was immediately noticeable and a very reasonable cost for the entire project...

 

[Speedskater]

My electrician says local code in San Francisco requires an additional ground rod be placed and connected to the existing ground rod.

Do whatever the inspector and the electrician want and then forget about it. The ground rods have nothing to do with day-to-day AC power quality.

Also required is use of AFCI breakers on the three new dedicated lines with the new subpanel. Does anyone know what affect, if any, AFCI breakers might have on sound quality or power delivery? Thanks in advance for your input.

ACFI breakers should not affect AC power quality. But they are prone to trip. Many older appliances create a line signature that the breaker interprets as an arc.

 

[lem321]

My 3 dedicated lines project is all but done. Waiting for the electrical inspection. I put in AFCI breakers in the new subpanel and tamper-resistant receptacles. Will swap these out for non-AFCI breakers and Furutech receptacles after the inspection passes. My contractor tells me that a separate ground rod(s) may not be necessary depending on which inspector you get. Some are sticklers for "going by the book." Others, not so much. Haven't hooked everything back yet. Still a lot of holes to patch and waiting for a few parts.

 

[rhyno]

IME there is no part of AC delivery that does not matter:
the outlets matter---a lot (love oyaide R0, new furu's very good, all others have been tried and bettered by aforementioned)
the dedicated lines matter a lot
the wall plates (ie vibration reduction) matters a lot
the IG matters a lot (lower noise floor)
the type wire in the wall matters (i liked the oyaide wall cable > romex). biggest gauge without soldering is best.

(i've not tried a subpanel)

list above in order of importance. YMMV. ---but anyone who knocks IG hasn't tried it i'd suspect

 

[Ron Resnick]

. . . biggest gauge without soldering is best.

. . .

Hello rhyno,

The discrete components in our equipment are affixed to circuit boards or other point-to-point components with solder connections. Why is soldering bad?

 

[astrotoy]

Before I started on my ripping project in 2009, my consultant Tim Marutani recommended that I engage a specialist in electrical systems for music applications. He recommended Art Kelm whose company is Ground One. He did a thorough exploration of my system and measured the noise level of the outlets. He recommended that I have an electrician run a dedicated line (240V) and he also installed a new ground. This connected to his Ground One Isolation Transformer. Most of Art's work is for music studios around the country. Most recently Art was hired as VP/General Manager/Chief Engineer to manage the rebuild of the famed Capitol Records Studio in LA. He had just done Neil Young's Studio when he did my home. His client list is very long and split between home theatre/consumer audio like me, and recording studios and artists studios. You can read more about Art's work at www.ground1.com. The total cost of the work was not cheap, but less than many exotic power cords or stand alone isolation transformers.

Larry

 

[Steve Williams]

Art is a member here and used to have his own subforum. He became so busy that he didn't have the time to post here. He made a site visit when I lived in Northern California

 

[microstrip]

Art is a member here and used to have his own subforum. He became so busy that he didn't have the time to post here. He made a site visit when I lived in Northern California

He is the author of an excellent article about clean power, including practical recommendations and quantitative values, at the site referred by Larry : http://www.ground1.com/whitepaper1.htm

I can not resist quoting a sentence :The reason for the two different standards is reflected noise from the individual components' power supplies. One must consider that all power supplies have reflected noise.