20 amp vs 15 amp spur

The problem is not with the electircal code. It is with the electrician. I spoke with 9 or 10 electricians before I found one with whom I could work. All the others insisted on engaging in a debate, the bottom line of which was that no stereo would ever draw more than 2 or 3 amps and therefore, regardless of whether or not I was prepared to pay the bill they would not install anything other than a 15 amp circuit.

I now have a 40 amp 110 volt dedicated circuit. It gave me the biggest return for the smallest investment so far in my system The wire is standard heavy wire used for a clothes dryer or kitchen range (cooker for our UK colleagues).

John, I live less than 10 miles from you, and the electrician's home is closer to you than to me. If you want his number give me a call. I am the guy who had the replacement gaskets for the SBL's when you needed them

I'm about to have my separate spur & earth installed, I'd love to hear about your experiences (in as much detail as you care to type), What did you use, how was it done/configured etc. Any tips? Things to tell the sparky. Describe the sound before and after etc etc, I'm only getting it fitted once, so I want to understand it and get the best from it, needle and thread.

Hello MrT, I am sorry but I don't remember your name. I remember where you live though. I don't have your phone number can you please e-mail it to me so we can talk further. It sounds like you have had the same experience.

Thanks
John

I searched for several months until I found an electrician who new his craft well and understood what I wanted. This proved to be the most difficult part of the entire process.

I am not an electrician, nor am I an electrical engineer, however, I will attempt to describe what was done as accurately as I can. I wanted a dedicated 40 amp circuit running in the 120 volt North American environment.

The electricity enters the house at the meter and then goes directly to a service panel that contains all the breakers for the house. The service panel has a master circuit breaker and then two banks of circuit breakers. For my dedicated circuit the breaker location closest to the main breaker was selected and a 40 amp 120 volt breaker installed.

The outlets required were to be installed in a room approximately 30 feet from the main panel. We (the royal "we," as I watched) installed conduit and ran individual wires through the conduit to the desired location. The wire used was AWG 8. This is a very stiff, high capacity wire that is normally only used for electric ranges, electric water heaters and electric clothes dryers which operate on 240 volts in North America. In most domestic installations it is a very unwieldy, sheathed wire that contains three insulated multi-stranded conductors (No. 8 wire) plus a bare copper ground wire. This stuff is not fun to deal with, even during construction. In a retrofit situation it is downright nasty material with which to work.

I was also concerned about future RF problems and thought it might be advantageous to use conduit. Due to the aforementioned characteristic, the electrician was more than willing to use conduit. With conduit you can use individual conductors of AWG 8 rather than sheathed multi conductor, as the conduit provides the required extra protection. The individual conductors are rather stiff themselves but certainly much easier to use. So conduit, with 3 conductors of AWG 8 plus one bare, heavy copper ground ran the30 feet to the outlet location.

At the outlet location a 5 gang box was mounted containing 5 duplex hospital grade sockets. Four of the duplex sockets were Hubbell (brand name) and the fifth a modified Bryant socket with brass only internals, for the CD source. (see later modification) Equal length pigtails were attached to each duplex, a hot lead, a neutral and a ground (about 6 inches long). Inside the wall outlet box all the hot pigtails were attached to the heavy gauge hot lead, the neutral pigtails to the neutral lead, the grounds to an insulated conductor that ran back to the grounding bar inside the service panel. Inside the outlet box the five pigtails of each type were attached to the respective leads using wire nuts (marettes). The bare copper ground wire is connected to the outlet box only and runs to ground at the service panel. The ground contact on each duplex outlet is grounded via the third insulated conductor.

The gains were, in my opinion, at least as great as adding a Hicap into the system. There was more transparency, more attack, greater quietness and greater scale. I never have problems with the transformers buzzing and the whole system has a beautiful quietness. Many systems are compromised by noise and clutter which seems to be caused by household appliances. The absence of such irritants is as a significant benefit. With my current amp, a NAP 140, if the volume is too high there is a hard glare to the sound. It is a sure sign the amp is working beyond its limits. Believe me it is plenty loud before one reaches that point unless one is a half-deaf former rock musician. The volume at which this undesirable artefact became evident, after installation, was at a much higher level.

Later Modification: Thanks to a lot of experimentation by Vuk, Steve, et al in London, Ontario it was determined that Bryant duplex outlets modified to have all brass internals performed superior to the 5 times more expensive Hubbell's. The most noticeable effect is the reduction of what I would describe as a digital glare. I concur with there conclusions that the Bryants are superior. The mod is extremely simple, buy two and put all brass screws on those duplex outlets you intend to use for audio applications. Use the chrome plated screws for some less demanding application.

System context: CDSII/ XPS/Rega PL-3(MM)/Magnum Dynalab FT-8/Yamaha TC800D/82/Scap/140/SBLs 9 ft apart, on centre, against the outside long wall of a room 13 X 24. The "wall of sound," a descriptive term that I believe Frank Abela coined, is very evident. The SBL's are incredibly fast, very detailed and have considerable base. I have owned a Marantz CD 63, a CD3, a CD2, a CDS and now the CDSII. On the pre-amp side I went from a 62/Hicap to 32.5/Hicap to the 82/Scap. If you want more base, and you want music, upgrade the source; and if you don't already have one, add the appropriate external power supply to your pre-amp. For more detail, greater transparency, upgrade the source and the preamp. Take as a given that if the equipment was designed to work with an external power supply that you want the biggest unit for which it was designed. Playing around with speakers and amps is an expensive and generally much less rewording pastime. Because of the quality of the front-end, I was getting quite incredible sound out of my system with relatively inexpensive SPICA TC60s. At each step there were significant gains in base. It is only recently that I upgraded to SBLs. The SBLs added base and there were also significant gains in detail and transparency.

Next steps: Either the 52 or 135s will be my next step. The NAP 500 and DBLs will follow and by then Paul and the boys will have so many new toys that I will just have to keep on going...and going…and going…(Like the Energizer Bunny!)