Upgrading mains feed

Good quality socket manufacturers include German' Schneider Electric or Gira. For the ultimate you may want to check Furutech.
But to be honest.... most of the UK sockets are fairly robust The most important part is the quality of the electrical contacts.

Cable gauge is relatively important, but again - don't overdo it.
The most important thing is that you are getting a dedicated mains spur with a properly earthed connection.

You may want to check the quality of the circuit breaker too - that is another critical component in the path.

Thanks for your response Adam.

Getting a good quality circuit breaker should be straightforward and I've found a 6 way silver plated mains power block for what seems decent money.  10mm mains cable is readily available though I would be happy to pay for shielded cable if it will give me any benefits.  Has anybody else used shielded cable in a dedicated spur? 

I treated myself to an audiophile circuit breaker - a German-made Klangmodul with 30A silver fuse. I still laugh at myself when I think about it, but at least it makes me feel good

I must admit the Clang Model name made me smile.

The power block I've found is £47.50 and MK circuit breakers are sub £30 so the biggest outlay would be the shielded cable. 

Cannot offer any advice on the shielded vs regular cable - we need Mike-B or Huge and their advice on this topic.

I suspect you will be fine with a simple Memera consumer unit, bog standard 10mm cable and unswitched MK sockets. Make sure the earth goes direct to the meter and doesn't piggy back off the existing consumer unit. 

At a complete tangent - look at getting a 272 to replace your 172: it's a lot better and a much better match for your 250. With a 172 I doubt you will hear any difference from getting silver plated sockets and swanky breakers, if indeed they exist at all. 

As Adam said above, getting a good clean supply is the key thing.

A dedicated spur is definitely going to happen HH but I have to say it is being done primarily in an attempt to stop the 250.2 buzzing and any upgrade in sound quality it gives will be welcome but is not expected.  I accept what you say about not needing to go over the top on the consumer unit and sockets/mains block and I just want to make sure I get the best value for money so the only question remaining is whether I get shielded cable.

As mentioned in previous threads, I've heard a 272 with my 250.2 and I definitely intend to get one when the combination of funds and availability (ex dem or used) coincide. 

Adam Zielinski posted:

Cannot offer any advice on the shielded vs regular cable - we need Mike-B or Huge and their advice on this topic.

Shielded cable won't do much in a normal domestic environment, standard T&E is all you need.   But if you want to lash out it won't do any harm,  you electrician might object to the 18mm diameter & its bend-ability tho'.    

+1 for HH re unswitched MK sockets,  they are the best in UK standards.  Don't think about the Furutech & other boutique end stuff - no sonic gains other than your wallet will be so much lighter buying all the distilled Antarctic Viper oils. 

You may well not get rid of the transformer hum/buzz, but you will get a good upgrade in sound quality. As HH has said above, the memera consumer unit with memera breakers is a great consumer unit. We tried a couple and believe it or not this gave the music a big lift. The sockets, if you use sockets, are the mk logic unswitched ones. Avoid multiway sockets as we found they degraded the sound.

If possible use a single 10mm radial to each piece of kit. Link the earth connections together at the socket end to keep to the star earthing principle (tell the electrician to loop test each before star earthing them, although im sure he will anyway).

Thanks for all the replies gents.  This is the mains block I was considering but I'm happy to go with MK Logik unswitched single sockets if they are better.

If I go with individual sockets I'm trying to visualise your wiring explanation Mr Happy.  I assume it will look like this (with separate consumer unit and single sockets) but could you explain the earth connection please.

Johnell posted:

I touched on this topic in a previous thread and the advice from HH and others was to split the meter tails with a Henley block, then fit a separate consumer unit and run 10mm mains cable to unswitched sockets.  

I have spoken to my electrician today and because of other work being done in the house we have worked out a route where I can keep the length of the feed down to 7 or 8 meters.  

Before going ahead I want to make sure I buy the best components so is there a preferred consumer unit?  There are plenty of 2 ways available but does it matter which one I choose?

Also, my electrician has advised leaving the existing switched sockets alone and fitting a new 5 or 6 way unswitched surface unit, is there a preferred manufacturer I should be looking for?

Finally, are all mains cables created equal or should I be looking for a specific brand such as the MCRU shielded 10mm?

Many thanks. John

John,

I use the MCRU 10mm shielded ring mains cable.  I also use their silver plated unswitched double wall socket and their 8 socket silver plated extension block.  The upgrade made a massive difference to the overall sound quality.  Keeping the existing socket(s) is easier for the electrician and also useful if you have for instance a device with a low quality switched mode power supply (for instance a NAS drive) which needs to be near the hifi.  That way it will not affect the dedicated spur.

For the consumer unit I used the Russ Andrews one.  To be honest I have no idea whether it was worth it (I am suspicious that some of their products fall into the snake oil category).  I did have to change the MCB in it because the type A MCB regularly tripped when switching on my kit due to the current inrush.

You certainly won't be disappointed with a dedicated mains spur. 

This is the block you need. Only problem is the lead time to get one is 6 years and it will cost £10,000.

That is really useful thanks Graham.  Swapping the fronts of the two existing double sockets with unswitched jobbies which I can use for the NAS and ripper is easy enough.  I still like the convenience of the 6 way mains block as it means only one termination of 10mm cable rather than daisy chaining individual sockets which I doubt my electrician would thank me for.......though I accept the individuals may be preferable for SQ.  Using the block will also alleviate the earthing issue as well as looking neater.

Time to get the SDS out and start making some holes. 

John, I was refering to 1 radial circuit for each piece of kit. This is why I connected an earth between each, to keep the impedance in the individual earths as close as possible. 

If you are only running 1 10mm circuit, and putting the sockets side by side, then I doubt you would need to bother with interconnecting the earths.

Mr Happy posted:

John, I was refering to 1 radial circuit for each piece of kit. This is why I connected an earth between each, to keep the impedance in the individual earths as close as possible. 

If you are only running 1 10mm circuit, and putting the sockets side by side, then I doubt you would need to bother with interconnecting the earths.

There is no way I can run 4 x 10mm cables let alone 6 so whatever sockets I use will be fed by a single 10mm spur.  I may still go with the 6 way block I mentioned, it will be easier to fit and much neater.

BTW Count.D, when your £10k sockets arrive you will have to let us know if they were worth the money.......

Johnell posted:

Thanks for all the replies gents.  This is the mains block I was considering but I'm happy to go with MK Logik unswitched single sockets if they are better.

 

If I go with individual sockets I'm trying to visualise your wiring explanation Mr Happy.  I assume it will look like this (with separate consumer unit and single sockets) but could you explain the earth connection please.

 

I've noticed your trailing socket has a neon light on it. I'm not sure this is wise as it can have quite a detrimental effect on SQ.

Like most I would reccomend an MK Logic unswitched twin socket. These are about the best you can get in the UK.

On my seperate hifi spur the electrician put 6m2 amour core cable in from outside on its own dedicated fuse box. This works into the first socket fine but to link to the next you need to come down to single core. I power my Amp and Pre off the 6m2 socket and everything else off the others. How does it sound...I recently borrowed a Musicworks block to see if it offered any improvement. I didn't, and sounded like someone had sat on the music. 

All noted thanks Geco.

I thought I'd read that the neon had been disconnected in that particular block....maybe twin MK Logic sockets are the way to go after all.  

Worst case scenario: install a regular, dedicated socket and then get a Wireworld power strip Matrix 2. It's fairly neutral and well made. Costs around £100. Heard it recently with 500 series - no difference wheather Naim boxes were plugged into the wall or into the Matrix 2.

Rather than any mains block, a Grahams hydra is the way to go in the UK. 

Johnell posted:

Thanks for all the replies gents.  This is the mains block I was considering but I'm happy to go with MK Logik unswitched single sockets if they are better.

 

If I go with individual sockets I'm trying to visualise your wiring explanation Mr Happy.  I assume it will look like this (with separate consumer unit and single sockets) but could you explain the earth connection please.

 

You can run 10mm from the consumer unit to the first twin socket but you cannot use 10mm cable from the first socket to to the second or third. 2 x 10mm cable will not fit into the wiring terminal of the twin sockets. The maximum cable size (x 2) that will fit is 6mm to link the sockets together. 2 x 10mm cables will not fit into the terminal post of the socket.

Hope that makes sense.  

There should be a "Naim directory!" of electricians who will happily carry out this work with good knowledge to ensure the highest mains supply/quality rather than taking the p**s out of us audio loving "nutters"!!!

Dusty, as you were.

Southweststokie posted:

You can run 10mm from the consumer unit to the first twin socket but you cannot use 10mm cable from the first socket to to the second or third. 2 x 10mm cable will not fit into the wiring terminal of the twin sockets. The maximum cable size (x 2) that will fit is 6mm to link the sockets together. 2 x 10mm cables will not fit into the terminal post of the socket.

Hope that makes sense.  

It does indeed, many thanks.

count.d posted:

This is the block you need. Only problem is the lead time to get one is 6 years and it will cost £10,000.

I may get one for the kettle and microwave, do they come in Ash?

We can certainly take mains supply options to extremes if we wish.

A single 10mm2 radial supply to a bank of unswitched, wall mounted MK sockets should do for any Naim system in the UK.

Alternatively, a single 10mm2 radial supply to a single MK unswitched wall socket, then use either a Grahams Hydra of a Musicworks 6 way block would do just as well in the UK.  This is what I use.

Anything more is getting a teeny weeny bit obsessive!

Best regards, FT

Many thanks for all of the extremely informative responses, all of my questions have been answered and this is what I plan to do:

Take a separate feed from a Henley block to a Memera consumer unit with Memera circuit breakers - run a single 10mm radial supply to an MK Logic unswitched socket - use 6mm cable to link to another double MK Logic socket - use the existing sockets to power the NAS and CD ripper.  

The best part is because it uses standard components it will be one of the cheapest SQ upgrades I can make.........fingers crossed it also gets rid of the buzzing.